


Sugar, Butter, Lies

by LandlessBud, PenzyRome



Series: Quote List Fics [2]
Category: Newsies (1992), Newsies - All Media Types, Newsies!: the Musical - Fierstein/Menken
Genre: F/F, M/M, fyi this is a COMPLETELY SEPARATE UNIVERSE from the last fic!, girlsie buttons!, it just is also a Quote Fic, scottish buttons!, second collab!, the quote list
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-12-13
Updated: 2019-09-07
Packaged: 2019-09-17 09:42:58
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 6
Words: 23,175
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16972239
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/LandlessBud/pseuds/LandlessBud, https://archiveofourown.org/users/PenzyRome/pseuds/PenzyRome
Summary: Davey overhears Jack mentioning that he teaches a cooking class. Despite his extensive cooking experience and many warnings to confess his love for Jack literally any other way, Davey signs up.





	1. Welcome to Class

“Where are my nuts?” Davey yelled, standing on a chair. Every shred of the dignity he had once prided himself upon had disappeared. 

Jack laughed. “I’ve got the filberts. Don’t worry,” he replied, handing Davey a large bag of hazelnuts. 

Five weeks earlier, Davey had been walking across campus to his bio lab when he spotted Jack deep in conversation with Kath ahead of him. Quietly power walking towards them, he had managed to overhear Jack saying that he taught cooking classes on campus to help pay for his tuition. 

Precisely four days and seventeen hours before that, Katherine had persuaded, or forced, him to watch the original  _ Grinch. _ Why she cared so deeply about it, he’d never understand. But one part had stuck out to him, as a dumbass with few critical thinking skills.

“The Grinch got a wonderful, awful idea.”

Four days and seventeen hours later, he sympathized with that line. And in that moment, his wonderful, awful idea nearly rivaled stealing a Christian holiday from a non-human village.

He was going to take Jack’s cooking class.

After his lab, he texted Kath for the details of Jack’s cooking class. 

_ Plums and Roses: why do you need to know? _

_ YesIAmDaveyJacobs: just curious. _

_ Plums and Roses: i can hear the gears in your head turning. what’s the dumb plan this time? _

_ Plums and Roses: god it’s been thirty seconds if it involves arson i’m out _

_ YesIAmDaveyJacobs: well. if using a stove is considered arson, then yes. it involves arson. _

_ Plums and Roses: using a stove for w h a t _

_ Plums and Roses: David Middle Name Jacobs you are not thinking what i think you’re thinking. _

_ YesIAmDaveyJacobs: what? it’s just a cooking class. _

_ Plums and Roses: dave. you’ve been cooking since before you could walk. do you seriously not recognize how bad of an idea this is? _

_ YesIAmDaveyJacobs: there’s no harm in brushing up on my basics. _

_ YesIAmDaveyJacobs: please, kath? _

_ Plums and Roses: fine. but i am not involved in this plan in any way, shape, or form, got it? _

_ Plums and Roses: the beineke building. room 503, 5 pm every monday night.  _

_ Plums and Roses: if anyone asks, you heard this from specs. _

_ YesIAmDaveyJacobs: yes ma’am. _

The next Monday, Davey set out for the Beineke building. 

As per usual, he worried the entire way. What if someone had mentioned the fact that he could cook to Jack? What if there wasn’t enough space in the class? What if he overplayed being bad at cooking and Jack decided he was pathetic? What if there was someone who was better at being charmingly incompetent? What if he was just being an idiot and needed to go home and watch  _ Scandal  _ reruns until he pulled his shit together and actually studied?

Then he walked in, and Jack turned around.

“Dave!” Jack grinned, and the corners of his eyes crinkled, and yeah, David Jacobs was a certifiable genius. “It’s so good to see you! Ready to smash?”

Davey blushed. Maybe he wasn’t in the right place after all. “Uh—”

“Some potatoes! We’re starting off with chopped chicken piccata and mashed potatoes,” Jack finished.

“Oh. Uh. Yea-yes! I  _ love _ mashed potatoes!” Davey enthusiastically responded. Maybe a little too enthusiastically? Well, he couldn’t take it back now.

Jack raised one eyebrow. “Cool, okay. Grab an apron and wash your hands, I guess.”

Davey dutifully marched over to the apron rack, picking out a blue one with ducks on it. After washing his hands and finding the paper towel dispenser empty, he walked back over, wiping his hands on his apron as he went.

Jack laughed. Davey wanted to hear that sound for the rest of his godforsaken life. “Go to a cooking station. You can’t cook on thin air! The potatoes would all end up on the floor!”

Davey smiled, hoping it didn’t come out as a grimace. “The more you know,” he managed, and fled to the safest station he could find—not right next to the stoves, not right next to the guy sneezing, not right next to Jack. Davey may have been desperate, but he didn’t have a death wish.

“Alright, everybody! Now that we’re pretty much ready to go, I’d like to introduce myself. I’m Jack, I’m a third year here, and I, remarkably enough, like to cook. Why don’t we all go around and introduce ourselves, now that I think about it. It’ll be easier for me to help you that way,” Jack said, pointing at a tiny, nervous girl in the front row. “You first.”

“Uh—hi, I’m Smalls,” she began. “I’m a first year, I hate dorm food, and my suitemates are shit cooks so I decided to come here.”

Next was Romeo, a second year wanting to impress his latest fling, then Finch, a panicked fourth year who needed to learn to cook before his mom’s next visit. 

Next thing Davey knew, everyone was looking expectantly at him, and he cleared his throat. “Hi, I’m David. Davey. I’m a third year, and I…” He faded off when he realized that he had precisely one reason for being there, and it wasn’t to learn how to cook. “I want to get to know someone better. And this, uh.” He paused. “They like cooking, so I thought…” 

“Aw, you want to cook for your crush! How sweet!” Jack interrupted, noticing that Davey was at the end of his rope. Davey blushed bright red. 

“Well, uh, yeah…” Davey froze.

“Why don’t we go to the next person. You!” Jack quickly redirected, pointing at the tall, lanky redhead at the station next to Davey’s. 

“I’m Buttons, I’m a second year on exchange here, and I wanted to learn how Americans cook,” she said with a thick Scottish accent.

Once Jack figured out what Buttons had said, the twins at the last two stations piped up. “I’m Mike, I’m a second year, I want to be better than Ike.”

“I’m Ike, second, and superior in every form.”

Mike turned towards him. “Dude, shut the fuck up.”

Jack cut Ike off from retorting. “Allllllrighty then. So. Today, as I think I might’ve mentioned before, we’re making chopped chicken piccata with mashed potatoes. I know it sounds like a lot, but it’s a lot easier than it looks.” Gesturing toward the oversized picnic baskets placed on each station, he continued. “Everyone, please open up your baskets. You’ll find your ingredients inside—take them all out and put them on the counter, then put the basket away.”

Davey scrambled for a napkin to shove in his mouth and hide his laughter.

(He couldn’t help but laugh, though. Having lived through Jack’s  _ Chopped  _ binge, he knew exactly what was going on.)

Jack clearly noticed and frowned at Davey, wrinkling his nose. Davey protested through the napkin. “At least my hands aren’t contaminated.”

Jack scrunched his nose up. “You’re a fuckin’ punk, you know that?”

Someone made a little worried noise, and Jack suddenly looked alarmed. “I’ve known him for two centuries, I can say that.”

The class broke out in giggles, and Jack smiled before he looked back down to his own basket. “Let’s get started!” he exclaimed, opening its flaps. “First, you’re going to want to grab your chicken breasts. They’re in a sealed container for a reason: don’t open it yet. Does anyone here know why I did this?”

Davey paused. He knew the answer, having handled raw chicken frequently in his own cooking adventures, but his cover would be blown if Jack learned of his experience in the kitchen.

No one had raised their hand while Davey deliberated, so Jack continued on. “Raw chicken could potentially carry some pretty nasty bacteria like salmonella, so you need to handle it properly. Don’t touch your face, and make sure to wash everything that’s touched chicken once you’re done handling it—including your hands! Otherwise you might get food poisoning and that would really fuckin’ suck.”

“Understatement of the year,” Smalls mumbled audibly, making the class break out in laughter once more.

“Alright!” Jack shouted, regaining control of the class. “Are we clear? I can’t really afford to have anyone getting food poisoning on my watch.”

“Yes, Teacher Jack,” Romeo answered, grinning broadly.

“Fuck off, Romeo,” Jack quipped, causing another fit of giggles. “Okay. So you’re going to open up your chicken container and put the two breasts on the cutting board.”

Mike and Ike doubled over in laughter.

Jack rolled his eyes. “Yeah, yeah, breasts, haha, we’ve all got them. Continuing on. Take that big knife—yes, Smalls, that knife—and cut each chicken breast into four strips.” Jack stepped away from his station to survey his students’ work. “Nice job, Buttons!”

Buttons made some sort of positive reply that Jack couldn’t quite understand. He gave her a thumbs up and returned to his station.

“Alright! Now that your chicken is sliced, you’re going to grab those little baggies of salt and pepper. Sprinkle some of each over each of your slices  _ evenly _ —Ike, do you  _ want _ to have one peppery slice? I didn’t think so—and set them back on the cutting board. This is called seasoning,” Jack instructed.

Davey wanted to roll his eyes. Of  _ course _ he knew what seasoning was. What kind of cook would he be if he didn’t? Not only that, he’d be a disgrace to his family if he didn’t. He restrained himself from making the comment that, as a black Jew, he knew his fucking way around a spice rack.

Jack didn’t look up from the slices he was transferring. “Dave, you put your napkin in your mouth again and I’ll kill you.”

“I—how the fuck could you tell?”

“Dude. I can smell the smoke over here. Chill. Besides, you’d contaminate your napkin with all the chicken on your hands,” Jack replied. “Aaaand that brings me to my next point: I need you guys to go wash the chicken off your hands. We need to start boiling the potatoes if we want to have any hope of being able to mash them later.” Like a mother duck, Jack led his students towards the sink in the back, demonstrating proper handwashing technique. Davey couldn’t contain his goofy grin at how adorable Jack was.

He almost reached for his phone before he felt what he could only describe as the non-corporeal essence of Esther Jacobs slap the back of his hand.

Right. He wasn’t exempt from handwashing. Meekly, Davey stepped up to the sink and washed his hands for the required 20 seconds, humming “Happy Birthday” to himself to keep time.

Upon returning to his station, Davey dutifully pulled out a second cutting board (“So you don’t cross-contaminate your potatoes, Ike,” Jack had reprimanded) and began cubing his Yukon Golds. Dumping his (rather excessive) pile of potato pieces into his pot of boiling water, Davey followed Jack’s instructions through dredging and sautéing the chicken and making the sauce carefully. Not too carefully, though, so he wouldn’t get caught. He flew under the radar pretty easily once Jack got distracted when Mike’s potatoes started vanishing rapidly. Ike, suspiciously enough, was sporting more potatoes than hair. 

“Okay, class!” Jack shouted once Ike’s head had been mostly returned to its previous potato-free state. “We’ve only got a few minutes left, so let’s plate our chicken piccata and mashed potatoes by packing it up to take home because we only have this room for a few more minutes and I can’t afford to rent it for any longer!” He pointed at the stack of mini-takeout boxes on the table near him. “We don’t have the big ones, so, uh. Bear with me, it’s gonna be a tight fit.”

Smalls raised her hand. “Mr. uh, Mr. Kelly. Could I, uh, politely ask how the  _ fuck _ you expect us to fit this dish we just cooked into those boxes?”

Jack sighed. “Just do your best. These looked bigger in the photos on Amazon and they were pretty cheap, so I figured they’d be a good deal. And, I mean, they were, they just weren’t what I was…. Expecting.”

Romeo coughed out a laugh. “Have you never gotten takeout Chinese?”

Jack wrinkled his nose at him. “I’m not sad, like you. Package your food.”

Davey was the first to walk up to the teetering tower of boxes. Plucking three off the top of the stack, he turned and strutted back to his station, unaware that the tower was toppling behind him. The class broke out in guffaws. Davey assumed it was due to his confident posture until Buttons pointed behind him, doubled over in laughter. Profusely apologizing, Davey raced back to the pile of boxes and tried to help restack them. Jack batted away his hands, insisting that Davey “leave a job like this to the professional.”

Romeo patted Davey on the back as he walked back to his table, eventually just tilting his dishes to let the food slide directly into his containers, about half of it missing and landing on the counters. Davey opted for a more methodical approach, which meant he was still boxing up his food once everyone else had left for the night.

“How much longer are you gonna be here?” Jack inquired, startling Davey. “I can’t really afford to stay here much longer.”

“Oh! I—uh. Ha. Not too much longer,” Davey smoothly answered.

Jack stepped behind Davey’s station. “Let me help you,” he said, scooping mashed potatoes out of Davey’s pot and into the boxes. “Fuck! This is not a teachable moment! Here, you hold the spoon. I’ll guide you so you can do this on your own next time.”

Davey nearly melted into the floor when Jack held his hand on the spoon and the next empty box. Too soon, all of his takeout boxes were filled with chicken and potatoes and it was time to return to his cursed usual position of not having his hand held. Jack gave Davey a final smile and wave as he shut the door behind them. At least he could complain to Crutchie about how he would never end up with Jack over some damn good chicken piccata and mashed potatoes. (Damn good, but not Esther Jacobs standard. He could never tell her.)

After a long, chilly walk across campus back to his apartment, Davey slammed open the front door, ready to whine. 

He dropped his takeout boxes in shock. There was Crutchie, alright. And that was Finch, freshly kissed, underneath him.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> thank y'all for reading!! here's a link to the recipe they cook this chapter: https://keviniscooking.com/chopped-chicken-picatta-mashed-potatoes/
> 
> also just another reminder: this is NOT the same universe as the last fic in this series!!


	2. Christmas John

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Davey attends the second week of Jack's cooking class. Chaos, cookies, and Christmas John ensue.

“In my defense,” Crutchie said, far too calm for the situation at hand, “I’m hot. And Finch is hot. So.”

Davey looked up from his pants, which were probably ruined from the mashed potatoes he’d spilled all over them. “That is  _ not  _ a defense.”

“Finch is a good cook? He brought me this chicken and mashed potato dish—” Crutchie began.

“ _ I _ made you the same damn thing. And now it’s all over the floor. And my pants,” Davey whined.

Finch waved a little. “Uh, hi guys. I’m here too, you know.”

Davey jumped, getting all of the mashed potatoes he had managed to pick up back on his pants. “Jesus Christ, don’t scare me like that!”

Finch sighed. “I’ve been here the entire time.”

“Technicalities,” Davey said dismissively, waving one hand. “Anyway, what the  _ fuck _ , Crutchie? I have boy problems to complain to you about and this is what I get in return?”

“It’s remarkable what kind of progress you make when you talk to the person you’re into,” Finch replied, smirking. “There would have been more progress, but, well, you know.” He gestured at Davey.

Davey could feel himself reflexively wrinkling his nose. “Don’t. Please. I can’t handle this right now.” Managing to get all of the remaining potatoes off the floor, Davey made a quick pit stop in the kitchen to toss all his food out before retreating to his room. 

And so he moved on to the next-most convenient layer of protection around his brain: his tried-and-true method of screaming to his sister to keep himself from losing all his marbles.

Sarah answered within two rings, which Davey considered quite admirable given the chaos he could hear going on around her. “Dave, I fuckin’ love you, but if this is about Jack, I’m teleporting over to murder you.”

Davey winced. “It’s about Jack.”

“Get ready, dude.”

Six days later, Davey was still living in fear of Sarah’s threat, but his news regarding Crutchie and Finch seemed to have somewhat placated her. Jack had sent out a message to his students informing them that class would take place on the 23rd this week, as he had a family commitment on Christmas Eve, so Davey bundled up and trudged through the snow back to the fifth floor of the Beineke building.

“Ho-ho-ho! Welcome back, students!” Jack crowed in a Santa hat and the ugliest sweater Davey had ever seen. “Wash your hands, grab an apron, and head to your stations.”

Davey had a bad feeling about this. He had nothing against Christmas, but the extreme commercialization of the holiday made him a little wary. He grabbed the same duck apron from before and headed back to his station in the center, where a large red cookie tin with a massive Santa emblazoned on top sat. Oh, no.

“Alright folks! Today, to get in the Christmas spirit, we’re going to make Christmas sugar cookies!” Jack announced.

Davey sighed. Couldn’t Jack at least have  _ tried _ to be a little more inclusive? He was pretty sure that Jack knew he was Jewish and didn’t celebrate Christmas. 

Smalls took the bullet and did his job for him, her hand shooting into the air. She didn’t even wait for Jack to call on her before she started. “So, uh, homeslice. Not all of us celebrate.”

“Oh! Fuck! Right! Holiday cookies! I meant to say holiday cookies! Decorate them for whatever winter holiday you celebrate. I should have any colors of food dye you’ll need,” Jack guiltily amended.

It was too late. Davey had already formed a vendetta. He was going to make the best damn Hanukkah cookies Jack had ever seen, even if Hanukkah had already passed. Would that stop him? No. Never. Did he enjoy seeing houses lit up, and kids being all excited, and the giant Christmas tree back home? Yes, of course. Was he petty? Yes, of course. Christmas could burn if it was all anyone ever cared about. Of course, Davey didn’t let Jack hear any of this, only giving him a sympathetic grin when the other man looked his way.

Jack winced apologetically, and Davey shrugged one shoulder. So he had remembered. Which… he didn’t know how to feel about. It was nice that he remembered. And it was nice that he felt bad. But also, did he  _ just _ remember, or had he known and disregarded it, or was Davey overthinking everything? Probably the latter.

Jack startled Davey out of his reverie. “Sorry about that, folks! Let’s get cooking before we run out of time in this room. If you open your cookie tins, you’ll find all of your ingredients measured and labeled for ease, plus a paper copy of the recipe for you to take home with you. Let’s start by taking out a medium bowl—that’s a good one to use, Finch—and putting in your flour, baking soda, and salt.” He demonstrated how to mix the dry ingredients together with a fork, then set aside the bowl. 

“Okay, now for the fun part!” Jack continued. “You’re probably going to want to wash your hands after this, though. Grab your butter— _ carefully _ , Smalls, it’s really soft—unwrap it, and put it in the bowl of your stand mixer, which I have already prepared with the correct attachment. Go me! Now, take your granulated sugar—the grainier, thicker sugar, not that one, THE OTHER ONE, MIKE, thank you—and add it to the bowl of the mixer as well. Now you’re going to  _ carefully _ put down the top part of the mixer—see, everyone, like how Davey’s doing it—”

Davey preened at this. (The bastard, making Davey want his praise at all times even if he was trying to prove a point.)

Jack kept on. “And use the switch on the right side to lock the mixer in place. Do  _ not _ use the left side switch, as that will turn the mixer on—SMALLS! NO! TURN IT OFF!” he yelped, rushing over to her station as sugar started flying out of the bowl of her mixer. Once Smalls’s mixer situation had been rectified, Jack returned to his station. “Okay, folks!  _ Now _ we’re going to start our mixers at the  _ slowest _ speed so that butter and sugar don’t fly everywhere. This is called creaming. We’re essentially going to beat a bunch of air into the butter so our cookies are light and fluffy. This also blends in the sugar to give the dough a more even texture.” He paused for a moment. “Okay, now that the sugar’s blended in pretty well, gradually set the mixer speed higher and higher until you hit medium speed. The butter should be making a loud slappy sound.”

Davey knew his cover was almost blown, so he “accidentally” moved his mixer speed up a little too quickly, taking some flying butter to the face.

“Careful, Dave!” Jack cautioned. “Might want to turn that down a bit!” Davey looked up and blinked, making his eyes wide the way Les always did when he broke something. Jack looked down suddenly, tapping his mixer for a moment while he recombobulated himself. He cleared his throat. “Okay… so now your butter should be well-creamed.”

Mike and Ike snickered in the back at this.

“Guys… come on,” Jack groused. “Turn off your mixers and grab the egg in your basket. Actually, wait. How many of you have cracked an egg before?”

Everyone’s hand went up.

“Let me rephrase that. How many of you have  _ successfully _ cracked an egg before?”

Only Buttons and Davey’s hands remained in the air. Jack sighed.

“Okay. So. I personally find using a flat surface the easiest way to crack an egg, so you’re going to  _ gently _ bonk it on the surface of your station.  _ Gently _ . Do  _ not _ smash the egg. If you get it just right, there should be a good line crack on the shell that you can carefully pull apart  _ over your bowl _ so that the egg goes in. See? Like this.” Jack demonstrated, masterfully bonking the egg and cracking it over his mixing bowl. 

Everyone tried to copy him with varying levels of success. Davey and Buttons’s eggs ended up perfectly cracked in their bowls, Finch’s mostly made it in, Mike and Ike’s fell on their stations, Smalls’s ended up on the floor, and Romeo’s egg was somehow in his hair. Jack sighed, grabbing a previously hidden egg carton and cracking an egg into each bowl that didn’t have one.

“Okay! Now that there’s an egg in your bowl and partially on some of you, we need to properly dispose of the shells. Thankfully, that sink in the back has a disposal, so you can wash your hands and shove your eggshells down the drain. Got it?” Jack instructed.

The students rushed to the sink, eager to get the slimy sensation of egg off of their hands.

Upon their return to their stations, Jack resumed teaching. “Alright. Now grab that little jar labeled ‘Almond Extract.’ You’re going to pour all of it in there, then carefully turn your mixer back on to the lowest setting. While that’s mixing, grab your flour mixture from earlier. You can give it a few extra mixes with the fork in it if you’d like. Once your egg and almond extract are fully mixed in, stop your mixer. This next part is going to be a little challenging, so please listen carefully. The goal here is for all of this flour mixture to be combined with this butter mixture,” Jack directed, pointing at the two bowls. “You are _not_ going to combine them all at once, as you’d just end up covered in flour, which would make your cookies pretty shitty. Mike, Ike, Romeo—flour is hard to get off when it’s combined with liquid, so do _not_ get any flour on yourselves because it’s never coming out with all that egg on you. Got it?”  
The three eggy men nodded.

“Good. Okay, so we’re going to do something called adding in parts. Basically, you’re adding part of the flour mixture to the butter mixture, then mixing, then repeating. I like to go in four additions because that way the flour doesn’t fly in my face.” Jack demonstrated as he talked through the recipe. “Scrape some in from the bowl—not too much, Smalls, or you’ll be drowning in flour—lock the mixer, and turn it on to the  _ lowest _ setting. There, that’s nice. No flying flour. Perfect. Okay, so once it’s fully mixed in, you’re going to add a little more. You’ll notice that the butter mixture’s starting to get a doughier texture, which is exactly what we want. Turn on the mixer again, and we’re going to keep repeating this until the entire flour mixture is added in.” Jack walked around the room, observing and making gentle corrections to ensure that everyone ended up with good cookie dough.

“Alright! The cookie dough is now finished. However, it needs to refrigerate for two hours before we can use it.” The class looked up in shock.

“We were promised fully baked cookies!” Romeo pouted.

“I know, and you’re in luck. I’ve already got more dough prepared and refrigerated, so you all will get your cookies by the end of this,” Jack replied, passing out winter themed Ziploc bags filled with chilly dough. “Put this cold dough on your cutting board, then put the dough you just made in the bag and set it aside for now. Grab some of the flour from the bag labeled ‘Extra Flour’ and sprinkle it on your dough and your cutting board. Move the dough over and make sure flour is all over the surface of the cutting board, then set your dough back on it. Now grab your rolling pin and roll out the dough to about ⅛ of an inch thick. You can just eyeball it as long as it’s consistent.” Jack paused for a moment. “Fuck! I totally forgot cookie cutters! I  _ knew _ I left something behind. Okay. Uh, so we don’t have cookie cutters. But you can take a small paring knife—yes, that one, Finch—and cut out shapes with it. I have this oven—” at this, Jack gestured behind him to a commercial-sized oven— “preheated to 375 degrees. We’re going to put all our cookies in there once they’re all cut out. Oh! Also make sure you have your cookie sheet—it’s a big flat tray—out and put a baking mat on it. Excellent. Once you finish cutting out cookies, set them on that. Make sure they’re pretty evenly spaced.”

Davey got to work, cutting out menorahs, dreidels, and Stars of David with his paring knife. They weren’t particularly fantastic, as Davey had nearly no artistic talent, but they got his point across. Or so he hoped. He threw in a couple of snowflakes, hoping at least one would turn out decent, and set all the cookies out on his tray.

Once Jack saw that everyone had finished cutting out their cookies, he instructed them through bringing their trays up to the oven and setting each on its own rack. “Now we’ll set a timer for eight minutes and wait for them to bake. While they’re in the oven, please clean up your stations. Make a stack of all your dirty dishes and set it to the side so you’ll have space to work. Icing cookies takes up a lot more space than you think!” Jack illustrated this by picking up his own dishes and wiping off his counter surface. “Okay, now we need to set up cooling racks for your cookies. They’re those wire mesh things over to the side—excellent. Unfold the leg things underneath them and set them out. Make sure they’re not anywhere they could tip and fall over. Perfect, everybody. I see there’s about a minute left on the timer, so grab a pair of oven mitts and come over here to get your cookies out of the oven.”

About a minute later, Romeo was nursing five burnt fingers, but everyone else had made it out of battle unscathed, a tray of freshly baked cookies sitting at each station. “Alrighty, folks! Now you’re going to grab a spatula—yes, the pancake flipper kind, not the other kind, Buttons—and gently transfer each cookie from the tray to your cooling rack. Nice job, Smalls. Great. Okay, so while these cool we can make the frosting.”

Davey was intrigued. He wasn’t sure if Jack would opt for a more difficult royal icing or a thicker icing for the sake of ease, as this was an introductory class. If he went for royal, Davey’s cookies would look practically professional. Anything else, and Davey was screwed.

“Okay, so this is just milk, confectioner’s sugar, and vanilla. I like to add some butter, since it makes it a little thicker, and it’s…” He paused. “It’s…”

_ A nightmare _ , Davey thought.

“Tradition.”

_ Fuck _ , Davey thought.  _ Now I can’t say anything about it without offending him. _

“Basically, you just want to dump all four of those ingredients into a mixing bowl and throw it into the stand mixer. Not literally, Romeo. Romeo… okay. Alright. Just… try your best, man.”

Davey added the first three, and then begrudgingly dumped in the butter, mourning the mix he was going to make for the perfect little flames on the candles in his cookie menorahs. Goodnight,  _ Great British Baking Show  _ level decorations, any kind of pride he would have in his work, and that quiet old lady whispering “hush”.

He cast a quick glance around—Romeo was barely functioning because of the loss of his dominant hand and Finch seemed to have added  _ far _ too much sugar, but everyone else seemed to be doing… fine.

Oh, they had a big storm coming.

Davey mixed his frosting, mourning the thick, spreadable texture. He split it into four bowls, then grabbed a bottle of blue food dye from the rainbow of dyes Jack offered the class. He left the first bowl white, then dyed each bowl a progressively darker shade of blue. His cookies may not have legible designs, but at least they would be cool and ombre. At least, that was the goal.

Davey was ready for battle. He picked up his first snowflake and slathered white icing on it, attempting to follow the borders of the cookie. Unfortunately, no matter how hard he tried, the cookie still looked like it had been decorated by a second grader. Hoping to cover up his mistakes, Davey snatched a bottle of blue and white snowflake sprinkles from the sprinkles Jack had set out. He dumped nearly a quarter of the bottle on his snowflake. At least it looked more like a snowflake now.

Davey grew increasingly frustrated as each cookie he decorated looked less and less like it was supposed to. The dreidels became blobby houses, the Stars of David became flowers, and the menorahs became strangely shaped octopi. Davey sighed. At least his snowflakes were vaguely recognizable thanks to Jack’s sprinkles.

He cleaned up his station and started putting his mixing bowls in the back to be washed.

Everyone seemed to be having a grand old time, frosting practically everywhere, including up Romeo’s nose and on the walls. (Thank Buttons.) Then, all of a sudden, Jack looked at the clock and made a vaguely animal-like yelp.

“Fuck, we’ve got five minutes. Clean up and clear out, people. Put your dough in your tins and your cookies on one of these plates.” At this, Jack gestured towards a stack of paper plates with Christmas trees on them at the front of his station. “Make sure to cover your plate in foil so that the cookies don’t fall off!”

As everyone filed out, Davey managed to finally secure the tin foil over his plate of cookies, and did a quick check to make sure that his station was clean. When it met his standards, he nodded to himself and started to turn away.

“Hey, Dave?”

Davey yelped, almost dropping his cookies. “Holy fuck, Jack, don’t do that to me!”

Jack scratched the back of his head sheepishly. “Sorry about that.”

Davey smiled despite himself. “It’s fine, really. What’s up?”

“I, uh. Walk with me?”

Davey’s heart rate went up dramatically, but he managed a nod. Jack held the door open for him as they both walked through, wincing when the cold hit them in the face.

“God, I’m not used to that,” Davey heard Jack mutter, and he nodded to himself. Santa Fe, he remembered. The desert. Hot climates and brush and scrubs.

“So, any reason we’re…” Davey paused to tuck his free hand into his pocket. “Taking this lovely walk, or do you just love my company?”

“I wanted to talk to ya, actually.” Davey snuck a look over at Jack, who's eyes were focused completely on his feet. “I’m sorry. About earlier, and all.”

Davey blinked. “Jack, it’s not a big deal.”

“Yeah, but it kinda is. I should’ve remembered, and I didn’t, and it sucks because I always get mad when people forget that I like guys, or that I’m adopted, or anything like that. So I can imagine it sucks for you, too.”

Davey blinked away snowflakes. “Thanks. I don’t…”

“Hey, don’t say you don’t care, I saw the fuckin’... fire of revolution in your eyes.” Jack knocked his shoulder into Davey’s, and Davey felt his ears heat up. “You got a right to care, dude.”

“I don’t dislike Christmas,” Davey said, watching Jack’s face carefully. “I quite like it, actually, and I don’t mind going to parties and receiving gifts and all that stuff. It’s just the assumption. That it’s everyone’s thing.”

Jack nodded, his eyes flickering up from the ground to meet Davey’s out of his peripheral.

“It’s always been a thing for me,” Jack said slowly. “I guess ‘cause when I moved in with Medda I’d never really had a big holiday before? And she was really kinda where God became like… a thing for me.” All of a sudden he winced. “Shit, I made it about me. Sorry.”

“No, go on.”

Jack exhaled, watching the fog from the cold blow away from him. “She adopted me when I was fourteen, just going into freshman year. And I think… I could’ve used him earlier, but going into high school, figuring out family… Medda and I don’t really do the organized thing. But God’s there for us, I think.”

Davey felt himself smiling. “It’s hopeful,” he filled in. “It helps you cope.”

Jack looked over at him and smiled back. “Yeah.”

Davey saw his building off in the distance. “You going back home for Christmas?”

Jack shrugged one shoulder. “I was gonna, but planes were too expensive. Fuckin’ hell to try and get a ticket in December. Medda and I are just gonna call Christmas Eve and Day. Probably Skype from some janky chain. The works.”

Davey frowned. “So you don’t have anything today?”

Jack shook his head, and Davey debated inside his head for a second before his mind was made up.

“Do you want to come over to my friend’s party?”

He blinked a few times, and his smile became a little more hesitant. “Seriously?”

“Yeah, of course.”

“That would be…” He raised his hand up like he was going to run it through his hair, only to realize he was wearing mittens and a hat. “That’d be awesome, holy shit. Really?”

“Really,” Davey said, and Jack’s smile broke into a full beam, nearly splitting his face into two and edging Davey even closer to full-on swooning. “You’re always welcome.”

“That’d be…” Jack trailed off, grinning and occasionally shaking his head. “Wow.”

“It’s, uh, I’m just dropping by my apartment to grab a Secret Santa present and drop off this dough, and then we can head out?” he offered, and Jack nodded quickly.

“Secret Santa, huh?”

“Yeah, it’s fun. And everyone gets together to make sure Sarah and I, and all the others who celebrate, get a little present each day of Hanukkah, Jojo gets showered in stuff when Ramadan comes around. It’s nice,” he said, unsatisfied with the finish when it actually meant so much.

They had reached Davey’s apartment at this point. “Wait here. And hold these?” Davey handed Jack his plate of cookies. “I’ll be right back down.”

Davey sprinted up the stairs, not bothering to wait for the elevator. By the time he reached his sixth floor apartment, he was wheezing a bit with the effort. He soldiered on, popping the tin full of dough in the fridge and grabbing his Secret Santa gift off the counter. Crutchie had left him a note saying he’d already left for Race’s Christmas John party. Davey sped back down the stairs, panting heavily when he got to Jack.

“You alright there, dude? No, wait. You’re definitely not okay. Let me hold that until you catch your breath,” Jack said, taking the Secret Santa gift. “You don’t have to sprint ‘cause of me, y’know.”

Davey nodded, grinning. “Shall we go?” he managed, indicating the way to Race’s house.

Jack held out his elbow. Davey nearly melted as he looped his arm through Jack’s. They peacefully ambled across campus to the party.

Davey knocked on the door, raising his his free hand to wipe snow off his face. Jojo answered almost immediately, throwing the door open.

“DAVE!” She yelled, obviously already several bars of chocolate onto a full Jojo de la Guerra sugar rush. “And a cute boy!”

Jack blinked, taken aback, though whether Jojo’s… personality or the hijab strung with Christmas lights was the cause, Davey wasn’t quite sure.

They stepped inside, and Davey nodded at Spot, making his way through the crowd of tipsy-to-drunk college students towards Race, who was holding court in the center of it all.

Race immediately zeroed in on him, breaking away from whatever story he was telling to shove Davey on the shoulder, hard enough to make him step back.

“You didn’t tell me you were bringing a friend!”

“Hello to you, too,” Davey said, but it was drowned out by Race yelling over the crowd.

“DAVEY BROUGHT A BOY!”

Jack’s eyes had nearly bugged out of his skull at this point. “ _ This _ is what your friends are like?” he hissed, handing Davey the Secret Santa gift and freeing up one of his hands in case he needed to defend himself.

“You’ll get used to them,” Davey whispered back. “Now, we should probably escape before—”

“A newcomer!” Race crowed. “It’s time to tell the legend of Christmas John so he can understand why we’re all gathered here today.”

Davey sighed. “Jack, I’m really sorry, but we’re stuck here.”

“Long ago—well, if 1975 counts as long ago—there were two siblings who loved to celebrate the holidays. One was named Eve, and the other, John,” Race bellowed, beginning his tale. “One fateful December, John complained to their parents that there were too many holidays named after Eve, and none named after himself. So, what did they do, but initiate the tradition of Christmas John: December 23rd. Everyone gets to open one present and enjoy even more quality time with family and friends. The tradition persisted, and now we have this party every year to celebrate,” Race concluded, stepping off the chair he had somehow managed to stand on in the middle of his speech.

Someone whooped loudly—probably Crutchie, if Davey knew him well enough, and the party dissolved back into chaos.

“You do this every year?” Jack said, leaning in closer so Davey could hear him.

Davey nodded seriously. “It’s very important to Race.”

“I… see.”

They made it through the rest of the party through sheer power of will, and with the help of a bottle of wine everyone else had abandoned.

Finally, around three, almost everyone had either gotten a ride home or simply fallen asleep, either on the couch, in a chair, or in Jojo’s case after her inevitable sugar crash, on the floor. Not a creature was stirring, not even a mouse.

Davey looked around, ensuring one last time that no one was holding a knife or a broken vodka bottle.

“Okay, I…” He blinked the sleep out of his eyes and tried to work his words out in his head first. “I think we’re okay.”

He turned unsteadily, only to find Jack sprawled across the loveseat, snowing loudly. Davey rolled his eyes and settled onto the rug in front of it, tipping his head back against the cushions and watching the snow fall as he eventually surrendered to sleep.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> thank you for reading!!! here's the link to the recipe in this chapter: https://www.mccormick.com/recipes/dessert/almond-holiday-sugar-cookies though I altered the frosting recipe a bit to match the frosting I (LandlessBud) use when I make sugar cookies!  
> merry christmas and happy holidays to you all!


	3. Dishonesty Pretzels

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Davey hangs out with Katherine and thinks he's late for the third week of class.

“Hey, Kath?” Davey said, and she glanced down from where she was perched on her bed, some magazine Davey had yet to discover covering the bottom half of her face.

She hummed, and he took that as his cue to continue.

“Would you describe my style as more casual-comfy or chic casual?”

“If you,” she paused for a moment to lick her thumb so she could flip the page, “are doing Buzzfeed quizzes instead of taking my advice,  _ again,  _ I will kill you where you stand.”

He frowned. “You and Sarah really do love death threats.”

“It’s the lesbian power,” she said, her eyes flicking to him briefly, and then back to her magazine.

Davey had known Katherine for what, his whole life? And usually, she was genuinely joyful, excitable, and generally thrilled to be a part of life.

Except when Davey got in the way of her fashion magazines, and then she was completely sick of him until she reached the last page.

He waited, very patiently, until she finally finished, and then she exhaled slowly, a smile coming back to her face.

“Okay,” she said, the usual cheer coming back to her voice, “what’s happening now?”

He turned his laptop so she could peer at the screen. She squinted as she read it. “‘This mega quiz list will help you plan your wedding.’ Dave, you aren’t engaged.”

He sighed. “No, but I could be if things go right.”

“Yes, but you’ve sworn to Esther that you won’t get engaged until college is over.”

He paused to regain his train of thought, utterly baffled by the concept of Katherine’s sheer level of common sense. “Yes but… it’s… never too early to start planning!” He finished triumphantly, sticking his index finger into the air for emphasis, and Katherine sighed, even though she was still smiling widely.

“Okay, come sit on the bed so my joints don’t have to suffer.”

He squeezed in next to her, and she grabbed the laptop, using a pillow as a cushion between it and her lap.

“Holy fuck, there’s a lot of these.” Her frown deepened as she scrolled through. “Christ. For women, for women, for women…” She tilted her head. “Create your dream registry to find out where you’ll honeymoon?”

Davey laughed out loud, and Katherine clicked in.

They spent the next few hours going through quizzes, and once they ran out of quizzes that Davey could feasibly plan a wedding with, they went onto Katherine’s side of things, and they got into a… mildly long argument over whether a blender or a pizza oven was a more reasonable investment in a new home. (Davey was holding out for the pizza oven—what use did he have for smoothies, anyway? Unless Jack liked smoothies. Then he’d opt for the blender. But he wasn’t giving Katherine the satisfaction of knowing that.)

Finally, Katherine winced at the low battery and shut Davey’s laptop, leaning back against the headboard of her bed. “So, no going home on break?”

Davey shook his head. “Hanukkah was the second to the tenth, so I went back for that. And I’d go home for Kwanzaa, but I got behind on my work when I went home during classes, so.” He shrugged. “I wanted to make sure I really knew everything. I missed the majority of finals prep.”

He looked over to see Katherine frowning. “But you still… passed?”

“Yeah.”

She sighed. “You’re an asshole, you know that? A genius asshole.”

“I owe it to Quizlet,” he said, and she coughed out a laugh.

Davey looked up at the clock and immediately choked on his own breath. “FUCK!”

He turned to Katherine. “Sunday?”

“Sunday,” she confirmed, a smile dancing on her lips, and he threw himself off the bed, tugging his shoes on as he scrambled around the room, tripping twice on Katherine’s peach shag rug. “What are you doing?”

“Jack’s really bad about remembering that a lot of major winter holidays occur on Mondays this year, so class was rescheduled for tonight. I have,” at this Davey looked at his watch, “ten minutes to get my ass to the Beineke building. Shit. Shit!”

“Oh, fuck. Go!” Katherine encouraged, shoving him out of her apartment.

Davey sprinted out, got about twenty feet, and then skidded back, tripped across her rug again, and kissed her on the forehead quickly before he raced towards the elevator.

He tugged on his coat as the elevator slowly descended all the way down from Katherine’s penthouse.

(Yes, penthouse. It made Davey just as jealous as any other human would logically be.)

As soon as the doors opened on the first floor, he sprinted out, snapping a quick two-fingered salute to the desk lady and remembering just how bad his already-proven lack of cardiovascular endurance was when he was less than halfway there.

After feeling like he’d ran twenty miles, he made it, skidding across the floor and slamming open the door.

“I’m here!” He yelled, just as the clock flipped to five.

Jack looked up from a cookbook he had laying across his lap. “Hey?” he said, raising one eyebrow, and all of a sudden Davey realized that there was no one there.

“Class is canceled,” Jack said after a second of awkward silence. “I sent out the text a few hours ago?”

And his phone was at his apartment, not at Katherine’s like he had been all day.

Fucking brilliant. 

He grasped at metaphorical straws, trying to come up with an excuse other than “I’m a dumbass!”

“I left my phone at home. And went to a friend’s place,” he managed, and Jack shrugged one shoulder.

“Fine by me. I dropped by in case someone didn’t get the message, but I don't,” he made a vague motion that Davey didn’t understand, “actually have the place, so if you wanna still learn something, you can come over to my place? I have a new recipe I’ve been meaning to test anyway.”

“Oh! Uh—sure. If I wouldn’t be imposing. That would be awesome!” Davey hoped he didn’t sound too over enthusiastic about the prospect of being alone with Jack in Jack’s apartment. (Not that he wasn’t enthusiastic. He was probably going to combust. But he didn’t want Jack to know that.)

“Let me just pack up my things and then we can head over. I think everyone else answered my text already anyway, so we should be good to go.” With one final cursory glance to his phone, Jack carefully placed the cookbook in the backpack sitting by his feet, replaced his chair to a side of the room, and offered his arm to Davey. “Shall we?”

God, Jack needed to stop doing that before Davey melted all over the floor. Katherine always had joked that he’d skipped over a bad boy phase in favor of boys who treated him with kindness and consideration. She could never know.

Jack cursed quietly when his key got stuck, pounding on the door a few times until he managed to unlock it.

“It does that,” he said, and Davey nodded, trying (and failing) to take a discreet look around. “Oh! Why don’t I give you the grand tour?”

Davey blushed, not realizing that he had been rubbernecking so obviously. “Uh, sure. Thanks.”

Jack tossed his keys into a bowl on his table and looked around, figuring out where to start.

“So, uh. That’s the kitchen, duh.” He pointed straight ahead. “Over here,” he said, gesturing to his left, “is the living room. Uh, that table over there between the two is the closest thing I’ve got to a dining room. That door,” he pointed to the right, “goes to the bathroom. And down that tiny hallway,” he waved towards a hallway in the back right corner of the room, “is where all the magic happens.”

Davey tried to restrain any visible signs of surprise. (His previous reactions in similar situations had included coughing, forgetting to breathe out of attempts to stifle laughter, and tripping over his feet.) “Magic, huh?” he managed, and Jack looked down at his feet.

“Yeah, sure,” he said, elbowing Davey in the side. “Nine whole hours of sleep. Every night.” Davey raised his eyebrows, impressed, and Jack laughed. Davey wanted to hear Jack laugh like that every day for the rest of his life.

A few seconds passed, and Jack coughed nervously. “So? Cooking?”

Davey suddenly remembered how to breathe. “Oh. Yes! Cooking!”

Jack guided Davey into his kitchen. “So I saw this thing about how like. Breads and shit are way easier to make than you think? And I’ve been really craving some good pretzels for a while, so I found a pretzel recipe I wanted to try out. And uh, the one thing is is that you have to let the dough rise for fucking ever so we couldn’t do it in class but I really fucking want some pretzels so uh. Wanna make them?” he rambled. Davey felt himself smiling, which Jack clearly took the wrong way. “Sorry I kinda sound like a fucking idiot. I, uh. Pretzels?”

Little did Jack know, pretzels were one of Davey’s specialties when it came to cooking. (They were one of Les’s favorites.) Davey was well and thoroughly fucked.  He didn’t say that, of course. Instead, Davey gave a “Sounds great!” followed by a long stream of internal swearing. How was he going to manage to fuck up _pretzels_ , one of four dishes he could confidently cook in his sleep? Mediocrity wouldn’t cut it when it came to this.

His brain was starting to go haywire before he made a brilliant decision. “Can I use your phone to call a friend?”

In a few minutes, he was frantically relaying his predicament to Katherine, whispering so Jack couldn’t hear him from the kitchen.

“Give it to me one last time,” Katherine said with the patience of a saint. “Jack wants to make pretzels and you make amazing pretzels and you don’t know how to fake being bad at pretzels.”

“And now I’m in his bathroom calling you, yes.”

"David Jacobs, you are a stain on humanity that not even a tampon and three maxi pads could protect it from."

“ _ That’s  _ your advice?”

“Dude, I have never once gotten myself into a situation as bad as that.”

“Remember your parents’ Christmas party?  _ Last year _ ?”

“Oh, shit. Yeah. But at least it was a finally-getting-together sort of thing and not a pretending-to-be-stupid-so-I-can-keep-lying-to-my-crush sort of thing,” she retorted.

Davey paused. “I… holy shit. Am I the Elle Woods of cooking?”

“Not even close. You just missed the entire point.”

“Oh my god, am I the Cady Heron of cooking? The movie one? Holy shit, I don’t want to be Cady. Elle is so much better.”

“And that’s why you’re the Cady Heron of cooking and not Elle Woods.”

“I’m going to be the Elle someday,” he said indignantly, and Katherine snorted.

“Good luck.”

“Are you saying that I can’t be?”

“No one can be Elle. She’s a bi icon who works her way to the top while still maintaining her identity. No one’s even close. Keep dreaming, buddy.”

“Fuck,” Davey whined.

“Do you need any actual help or are you hiding from Jack because you’re a dumbass?”

Davey sighed. “I’m hiding from Jack because I’m a dumbass.”

“Good! Progress!” Davey could practically hear the smirk on her face. “Jack’s also a dumbass, so you’ll be fine. Sayonara!” Katherine hung up the phone.

Davey sat on the toilet and held his head in his hands.

“Dave?! Are you okay?” Jack hollered from the kitchen.

Davey swore under his breath. “Yeah! I’ll be out in a sec!”

He splashed some water in his face and groaned, resigning himself to his fate before he headed back out.

Jack grinned when Davey walked into the kitchen. “There you are, I missed you.”

Fuck. Davey was one hundred and three percent in love with Jack. He couldn’t just say those things without expecting Davey to totally lose control of all his motor skills. 

So Davey promptly stepped forward, forgot how to walk, and fell, smashing his head directly into Jack’s Truffle Dust colored stand mixer.

“FUCK!”

“Dave, when I looked at this recipe, step one was to put the water, sugar, salt, and yeast in the mixer, not fall onto it,” Jack quipped. 

Davey tried to flip him off, then winced and clapped his hand back over his face.

Jack suddenly became concerned. “Wait, are you hurt?”

“I  _ literally  _ just face planted into your mixer.”

Jack stepped towards him and squatted down to be on his level, peeled Davey’s fingers away from his eye gently, and then made a noise somewhere between a gasp and a gag. “Oh, fuck, that’s gonna bruise really bad,” he muttered.

“What? It’s kind of hard to hear you over the sound of Captain Obvious,” Davey replied. “I feel like a truck ran over my forehead. Twice.”

“Shit,” Jack said, louder that time. “Oh, fuck. Ice pack. Ice pack.” He ran over to his freezer and pulled it open. “Peas! Okay, we’ve got frozen peas.”

Davey realized he had a magnificent solution to his problem. “Thanks,” he said, taking the bag and pressing it to his forehead. “I don’t know how well I’ll be able to cook right now, though.”

“Shit! Don’t worry about it, dude. I’ll, uh. I’ll make the pretzels and you can just. Chill on the couch? Shit, I forgot I left those textbooks there. Fuck. Fuck. Okay, that should be good. Need some help getting up?” Jack offered his hand to Davey, unaware that this motion made Davey’s knees weaker than before. He took Jack’s hand, his head swimming only partially because of the pain, and Jack put his hand on Davey’s elbow, helping him up and over to the couch.

God, Davey needed to get mildly injured more often if this was what happened.

“You get comfortable there, I’ll make the pretzel dough real quick and then we can watch a movie or something while it rises,” Jack said, starting the mixer, which had suffered much less damage than Davey had.

Davey sat quietly and listened as Jack bumbled about in his kitchen. Occasionally he’d mutter something to himself or take notes on techniques in the recipe, reminding Davey of his own culinary adventures.

After a little while, Jack plopped down on the couch next to Davey. “Okay, I’ve got Netflix and pretty much nothing else, so we’re gonna have to make do,” he said, smiling at Davey briefly before he opened up his laptop.

“That’s more than what I’ve got, so I’m good with that,” Davey replied, remembering that the extent of his television media consumption consisted of his  _ Star Wars _ DVD collection.

“Alrighty then. What shall we watch?” Jack asked.

“Uh… I don’t watch much TV, so you can choose,” Davey said, though he was rather partial to  _ Parks and Rec _ . (It made him happy, okay? It reminded him that not every government official was a dystopian nightmare.)

“Okay.” Jack typed “Two Weeks Notice” into the search bar and pulled up the movie. “Just a heads up, I am probably going to cry. Scratch that. This movie gets me every time. I am  _ definitely _ going to cry.”

“Why?”

“I’m just… I love Hugh Grant. That white man owns my heart and he won’t give it back.”

Davey laughed, and Jack rolled his eyes. “Fuck you! I confess my love for this pretty white boy and you laugh in my face.”

“Yeah,” Davey agreed, and Jack wrinkled his nose at him.

“Just watch, you monster.”

Davey put up his hands to indicate his surrender, and Jack pushed his hand back down, shushing him.

Davey wanted to enjoy the movie. He really did. But if Jack truly wanted him to know the plot, he wouldn’t have left his hand on top of Davey’s.

As the credits rolled, Jack’s phone beeped loudly. “FUCK! That’s the timer for the pretzel dough. Uh, I should go work on those.”

Davey frowned, not wanting to give up Jack’s warmth at his side. “Do you  _ have _ to?” he complained, tugging at Jack’s arm.

“Yeah, but you can join me if you’re feeling better.”

Davey made an adjustment in his mental plan. “I guess I can do that,” he said, following Jack into the kitchen like a lovesick puppy.

By the time Davey made it into the kitchen, Jack had already set up a large pot filled with water to boil the pretzels in. He internally approved of Jack’s pretzel-making procedure when he saw the oiled sheet pans. Boiling and then baking was his tried-and-true method of making the best possible pretzels. 

He didn’t say it out loud, of course, but it was always nice to have one more piece of evidence he could use to convince Sarah that Jack was Grade A Boyfriend Material.

“Have you ever made pretzels before?” Jack asked, startling Davey out of his reverie. This was the moment of truth. Or, well, lies, in Davey’s case.

“Uh—no. I, uh, my brother likes them, but I never got very good at making them,” he replied, scratching the back of his neck. Jack smiled at that.

“Well, then, now you can!”

That was the first moment, really, that Davey felt guilty about all of it. It was mostly harmless, he knew, and he wasn’t hurting anyone, but watching Jack grin reminded him that yes, he was digging himself deeper and deeper into a hole he wasn’t quite sure how to get out of.

“Great,” Davey managed, trying not to look as ashamed as he felt.

“Okay, so forming pretzels. I haven’t done a lot of it but I think I can show you the ropes.” Jack laughed at his pun. Davey paused for a moment, trying to run through the words in his head. Jack sighed. “‘Cause like. Ropes of dou—y’know what, never mind. Okay, so, we’re gonna want to split the dough up into eight parts, for eight pretzels, okay?”

Davey nodded. He could do this part well without pretending to be absolutely atrocious at it, since Jack had taught the class some knife skills when they made cookies. After cutting the dough ball into eight slices, he glanced over at Jack to figure out what was next.

Jack glanced up from the recipe on his phone. “Oh! You’re done. Okay. So next we have to roll each one of these pieces into a 24-inch-long rope.” He took one of the pieces and demonstrated. Davey was a little too distracted looking at Jack’s hands to pay attention to the technique he used, but he knew he’d be fine, even if it had been several months since the last time he had made pretzels for Les. “Your turn,” Jack said, interrupting Davey’s train of thought and handing him a piece of dough.

Davey rolled it out carefully, focusing on the dough to ensure his muscle memory didn’t kick in and produce a perfect dough rope.

Jack hummed approvingly when he finished. “That’s not bad.”

Oh, thank God. If he’d said it was good Davey might have slammed his head on the mixer on purpose.

“Okay, so now the recipe says to ‘Make a U-shape with the rope, and, holding the ends of the rope, cross them over each other and press onto the bottom of the U in order to form the shape of a pretzel.’ Oh, there’s a picture here. Uh. Let’s just work off that. Why don’t I try one and then you can try one?” Jack continued, picking up his dough rope and inexpertly shaping it into what looked like a vague recollection of a pretzel in the mind of a four-year-old. “Okay, wow. Looks like I need some practice.”

Every single neuron in Davey’s brain was screaming at him. If he was better than Jack, Jack would doubt what Davey had told him, but if he was worse than Jack… He really didn’t think anyone could be worse than Jack. Except, like… An infant who had never seen a pretzel. “So… Jack… I thought you were studying art?”

“Oh, yeah, I am, but I haven’t taken my sculpture requirement yet. Hence… this.” He gestured towards the sad excuse for a pretzel. “But I’ll pick it up fairly quickly. Maybe we can try working together on this next one?”  
Davey was about to spontaneously combust. “Uh, sure,” he answered, voice rising three octaves.

Jack raised his eyebrows at this. “Okay, you can make the U on your own, right?”

Could Davey make the U on his own? Fuck yeah, he could. His pretzels were the envy of all of Les’s friends. Could he make a fucking U out of pretzel dough? Of fucking course. He could also make pretzels that actually looked like pretzels, thank you very much. “I think so” was the only response Jack got.

Davey shaped a wobbly, lopsided U out of the dough. Jack nodded, then placed his hands on Davey’s. God, Davey hoped Jack couldn’t feel his pulse racing at the sensation. Jack guided Davey’s hands into the cross of the ugly pretzel shape the recipe called for, then pressed the ends of the rope into the dough at the bottom of the U.

Jack turned his head so he could smile at Davey, uncomfortably close to him, and Davey was roughly three and a half seconds away from combustion before Jack’s eyes widened and he looked down quickly.

“So, uh. There’s a pretzel.” Davey looked down at it. His pretzel looked significantly more like a pretzel than Jack’s previous attempt. “You want to try the next one on your own?”

Davey made the most selfish decision of his life. “Uh… I’m not very good at this, so can we do the next one together too?”

Jack nodded rapidly. “Yeah, sounds good. Sounds great.” He took Davey’s hands again, guiding him through rolling out the dough and forming the next pretzel. Davey got so comfortable that he barely noticed Jack kept helping him with the remaining five pretzels. “Okay, so we haven’t gone over how to boil things in class, so I’m gonna do that part if that’s okay with you.”

Davey was perfectly okay with this. With Jack as a distraction, he’d most likely end up accidentally pouring the boiling water on his foot or something, and he wouldn’t even feel it. He walked around the counter and sat on one of the stools, watching Jack prepare to boil the pretzels. 

Jack grabbed a large skimmer (the right choice, Davey knew, having burned himself multiple times trying to use other utensils to get pretzels in and out of boiling water) and carefully set the first pretzel on it. He looked a little nervous, and Davey couldn’t blame him. Gathering up all of his courage, Jack carefully set the pretzel in the water, pulling the skimmer out from underneath it. He looked over at Davey with a giddy smile, holding up his free hand for a high five. Davey obliged, secretly hoping that Jack wouldn’t burn the pretzel.

About thirty seconds later, Jack took the skimmer once again and carefully slid it under the pretzel, pulling it out and setting it on one of the greased trays. Davey was so proud he could cry.

Then, Jack said, “You wanna try?” And Davey had a stroke.

“I’d burn the fuck out of myself,” he said, and Jack barked out a laugh.

“Fair enough.” Jack slowly made his way through boiling the seven remaining pretzels, then brushed them with an egg wash and special pretzel salt (Davey usually didn’t bother with it—coarse salt worked well enough for him) and popped the trays of pretzels into his preheated oven. After setting the timer for twelve minutes, he pulled out two cooling racks and set them on his counter. Davey smiled, proud of Jack’s pretzel cooking etiquette.

Davey insisted on helping Jack clean, at least partially, until the twelve minutes were over. When the timer went off, Jack grabbed two pairs of oven mitts and tossed one at Davey. “Think I can trust you to take a pan out of the oven?”

Davey grinned, pulling on the mitts. “Guess so.”

Jack opened the oven and took one tray out, then waited for Davey to take out the other. Once making sure the two trays were set safely on the granite countertop, Jack closed the oven and turned it off. Grabbing a spatula, he gently removed the pretzels from the trays and set them on the cooling racks. “There. Done. Now all we have to do is wait so we don’t burn our mouths.”

“Mhm, you care about not burning your mouth  _ now,  _ and last week when Crutchie brought coffee you downed it like liquid gold?”

Jack let his mouth hang open, shocked that Davey would stoop so low. “I was  _ wounded.  _ I hadn’t showered in  _ two days.  _ I needed  _ salvation. _ ”

“You can’t live two days without a shower?”

“Listen,” Jack said, washing the last of the dishes as he defended himself, “you might have your fucking. Camping or whatever the fuck you like to call surrendering yourself to the bears, but I’m a dignified asshole, and I don’t do that shit.”

Davey shrugged. “More bears for me, then.”

Jack froze in the middle of scrubbing a bowl, the water running as he blinked. “Fuck, I walked right into that.”

Davey was about to give an overly flirtatious response when he looked at the clock. “Oh! The pretzels are supposed to be cool now!”

Jack looked like a kid in a candy story. He picked up the almost-pretzel that was his first attempt and took a bite, further mangling the poor thing. “Holy shit, Dave, these are fantastic. You  _ have _ to try one.”

Smiling, Davey picked up his first-attempt pretzel, and as soon as he bit into it he recognized that Jack’s highest pretzel standards likely consisted of ballpark pretzels, not the high end pretzels you could get if you tried.

Still, for one of the first attempts, it was… much better than Davey’s first attempt, which had involved his poor sixteen-year-old mind not understanding the difference between baking powder and baking soda and Esther desperately trying to bandage his thumb up to avoid an expensive trip to the doctor.

So truly, there weren’t any huge mistakes, and Davey was sure the recipe itself was perfectly fine. Could it have used a little less water? Probably, but Davey didn’t understand everything: he just rolled with what the universe threw at him.

“So? What do you think?” Jack nervously inquired.

“Oh! They’re good. Really good,” Davey replied, eating the rest of his pretzel. “Fuck! Would you look at the time! I should probably head home before my roommate gets worried.”

“Here, you should take your half of the pretzels,” Jack said, putting three of the remaining pretzels in a Ziploc bag. “I’ll see you in class next week, okay?”

“Sure thing.” Davey blushed, taking the bag of pretzels. “Oh, and thank you so much. For teaching me to make pretzels tonight. And the company,” he added right before stepping out the door of Jack’s apartment, rushing out before Jack could say anything to make him swoon.

Davey raced home through the chilly air, trying to keep his nose from freezing off before he made it to his apartment. Throwing the door wide open (and letting in a wintry gust of wind), he announced his entrance to Crutchie. “I have returned bearing pretzels!”

Thankfully, Finch wasn’t over, and Crutchie narrowed his eyes at Davey from the couch. “You make pretzels all the time. What’s so special about these ones? Wait, wait. Let me guess. You made them with Jack, didn’t you.”

“So what if I did?” Davey said, his eyes going wide in false innocence.

“Dude. You’re so fucking gone over him it’s not even funny. And besides, your pretzels are better than these are going to be. I guarantee it. Unless you decided to stop lying to Jack?”

Davey averted his eyes, and Crutchie groaned. “I don’t want your dishonesty pretzels.”

“Fine.” Davey crossed his arms. “More for me, then.” Taking his bag of pretzels into the kitchen, he popped one onto a plate and into the microwave to heat up, then grabbed some mustard out of the fridge. After the pretzel was done, he squirted a huge blob of mustard onto his plate. He flung himself onto the couch next to Crutchie, almost losing his pretzel in the process.

Crutchie managed an admirable few moments before he groaned and held out his hand. “Gimme some of that shit. It smells really fuckin’ good.”

Davey obliged, tearing his pretzel in two and handing half to Crutchie.

“Fuck, your dishonesty pretzels are delicious. I hate you so much.”

Davey simply smiled and took another bite of the pretzel.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> thank y'all SO MUCH for reading!!! this is our last fic of 2018 (we know, it's WILD!) and we can't wait to see what 2019 has in store for us!  
> here's the pretzel recipe we used for reference: https://altonbrown.com/homemade-soft-pretzels-recipe/  
> and thank you, alton brown, for saving the gays in the newsies fandom by creating a recipe that allowed us to have davey slam his head right into a stand mixer in step one.  
> happy new year, folks!


	4. Empanada Time

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Davey attends his third class. Spanish, DnD, and surprisingly good relationship advice ensues.

Davey considered himself a responsible, reasonable person. A well-trained older brother with absolutely no control over his emotions. Someone who could stand up for the people around him and then melt into a puddle as soon as he was told so much as “Good work.”

Case in point: Jack Kelly and the absolute catastrophe he made of Davey’s heart.

“Alright, folks. Today’s recipe is gonna be a little different,” Jack began. Davey was already swooning. “We’re gonna be making one of my favorite traditional dishes. The thing with it, though, is that there really isn’t much of an actual recipe.”

Every member of the class gasped. Smalls raised her hand.

“Yes, Smalls?”

“How the fuck do you expect this to work out with us?”

“I trust you guys. Plus, these are really hard to fuck up. You’ve all made it this far and you all definitely have the skills to make these. So! Today we’re going to be making empanadas. Argentine style, because that’s easiest.”

Davey could see Mike and Ike tilt their heads back, like they were sizing Jack up in a fight. He waited one, two, three seconds, and both of their hands flew up.

Jack nodded at them, and they looked at each other in a silent  _ but who?  _ before Mike said, completely deadpan, “We’ll leave if you fry something.”

“I’d rather die,” Jack responded seriously. “Plus I’d probably burn myself, which means you all would literally die. So don’t worry. We’re not going anywhere  _ near _ a deep fryer.”

The twins sighed in relief. “¡Qué copado!” Ike exclaimed.

Davey shot a look at Jack, who thankfully looked calm, so he could probably believe he wouldn’t have to cover the ears of their resident freshman.

(Smalls just kept picking at her fingernails. She probably didn’t care.)

“No soy un pendejo, güey. Es chido,” Jack replied saucily.

Mike whistled. “¡Tienes boludo!”

Davey snuck a not-so-discreet look down to his phone when it vibrated in his pocket.

_ Romeo from Jack’s class: hi what the fuck is happening _

_ Finch (Crutchie’s ?????): wdym _

_ Romeo from Jack’s class: this is all regional shit its chaos.. nothing means anything life is a confusing pit _

_ Davey: just let them work it out of their systems. _

_ Finch (Crutchie’s ?????): that period scares me put it back _

Davey looked up from his phone to see Jack waving a wooden spoon like a conductor’s baton and figured it was safe to zone out.

_ Davey: put the period back in my keyboard???? _

_ Finch (Crutchie’s ?????): yes its not natural _

Davey discreetly stuck his middle finger up in Finch’s general direction, and of course Smalls chose that moment to pay attention.

“Jack, Davey’s flipping off Finch!” Jack immediately whipped back into present day, turning to point his spoon at Davey.

“Stop flipping the bird at the bird, or--” he couldn’t finish his empty threat before Romeo booed him loudly, and Jack flipped him off before tossing his spoon back on the counter and focusing again. “Alrighty, folks! Sorry about the momentary distraction. To summarize: yes, we’re making empanadas today, no, they won’t be fried, and yes, they’ll be delicious. Ready?”

The class nodded mutely, eyeing their baskets.

“So the most difficult part of making empanadas is the meat preparation—yes, Mike, they’re the traditional beef ones—but it’s still pretty straightforward. Grab your frying pan”—Jack held up his as an example—“and set it on the burner. Don’t worry about turning it on right now, but you’ll need it soon. Take the onion out of your basket and set that on your cutting board. Before we do anything, can anyone tell me what happens when you cut an onion?”

Romeo raised his hand. “You fuckin’  _ cry.” _

Jack pursed his lips. “Aren’t you, like… a chem major?”

Romeo shrugged one shoulder. “In a way.”

“Leaving that behind. Davey, please tell us. You’re the only person I trust.”

“Uhhh… the onion releases some chemical that basically tells us it’s mad at us and it makes your eyes tear up a lot?”

“Precisely!” Jack answered in a way that suggested he had absolutely no idea what Davey was talking about. “Thank you for your brain. Anyways, so, uh. If the onion makes you cry… suck it up. French words from a noir movie.”

“C’est la vie,” Finch said, looking incredibly unimpressed, and Jack snapped his fingers.

“You heard the man! So! We are going to dice our onions.”

Buttons giggled beside Davey.

“Can anyone here tell me what it means to dice something?”

Buttons, still laughing, raised her hand.

“Yes, Buttons?”

“To chop that thing up into little cubes,” she said, and Jack seemed tremendously pleased by his newfound ability to converse with every member of his class.

“Exactly! We’re going to chop this onion up into little cubes. It’ll be easiest to do that by chopping it in half and then dicing each half of the onion. Got it? I believe in all of you. If you need help, you can watch how I do it before you start.” Jack made short work of his onion, cleanly cutting and dicing, then piling up all the little cubes. 

Davey knew how to dice an onion, but he figured it wouldn’t hurt to fuck it up a little. He sliced his onion haphazardly in half, then became the world’s slowest dicer.

“So you guys are probably wondering why I’m teaching y’all to make empanadas Argentine style even though I’m very much… not Argentine. For those of you who don’t know, I was in the foster system for a while when I was younger. Not to like.. Turn this into group, or whatever. I mean, if you guys wanna share something, y’know. Feel free to throw it out. We’re all tired here. Anyway, so I had this one foster mom. Her name’s Medda.” At this, Jack shot a grin to Smalls. “Eventually, she liked having me around enough she adopted me. But that’s not what this is about. When she learned that I hadn’t really ever gotten a chance to connect with my heritage, she decided to help me do that even though she wasn’t Latina. She started with food and found this recipe for empanadas, which she knew were served in Mexico—where I’m from—but she didn’t realize that they’re pretty common in a lot of Latin American countries. So she ended up making this recipe for Argentine empanadas, but I liked them so much we ended up making them a lot anyway.”

A tear rolled down Davey’s cheek before he could stop it.

“Whoa, Davey,” Romeo whispered. “You alright?”

Davey started. “Yeah, yeah. It’s just... the onions, y’know?” He gestured towards his cutting board where his lopsided onion cubes sat.

Romeo looked thoroughly unimpressed by his excuse. “Sure, dude.”

Fuck, Davey needed to call his mom. Jack Kelly, stories about personal links to culture, and stories about parents were literally his three “Press Here To Make Davey Cry” buttons.

“Alrighty, folks. Looks like everyone’s done dicing their—put that knife DOWN, Smalls, now is  _ not _ the time to fake threaten people—okay, looks like all those onions are diced. Try to make your pile of onion dices—bits—I don’t know what to call them but you get the point—as small and neat as possible. You’ll thank yourself later. Before we sauté these onions, we have a couple more preparations to make first. Grab the package of ground beef out of your basket”— here, Jack winked at Davey—“I made sure that it’s kosher—and unwrap it so it’s just sitting out in its tray. This’ll make the rest of your cooking a whole lot easier. Also, you might as well grab the thing of cumin I put in your basket, too. You’ll need it soon. Excellent. Okay. So now you’re going to grab your frying pan—yes, Smalls, like the one in  _ Tangled _ —and set it on your range. Or stove. That’s the same thing, by the way. Okay, so you’re going to pour a little olive oil into it from that bottle on the counter—not that much, Ike, or you’ll accidentally deep-fry your meat—”

Mike and Romeo snickered. Jack pursed his lips and tilted his head back towards the ceiling.

“Dios mío, I’ll deep-fry your heads.”

Somehow, no one found him threatening.

“Okay, okay. Anyway. Continuing. Turn up the burner that the pan is on to medium heat like so, then use the back of your knife to push your diced onions in.”

Davey was perfectly capable of doing that without spilling, but he felt he needed extra certainty that his cover wouldn’t be blown tonight. Quietly, he arranged his diced onion pile into a wide line and attempted to quickly shove it into the pan. About a quarter of his onions ended up on the next electric burner over. Davey was relieved. He didn’t like onions that much anyway.

“Shit! Okay. Forgot to mention, but since we are sautéing these onions, you need to be constantly stirring them for about the next five minutes,” Jack yelped, grabbing a spoon to stir his onions. “So do you guys, uh.. Just wanna listen to these onions, or do you want a story?”

There was a general muttering of “Story,” and Jack frowned. “Well, that was sad.”

“STORY!” Smalls yelled, and Jack pointed at her with his free hand.

“This is why you’re my favorite.”

There was a mix of garbled protests from nearly every member of the class, and Jack held up a hand to pacify them. “Sorry, sorry, sorry. Dave’s my favorite.”

Davey was about to have a heart attack.

Romeo looked about ready to start a riot, so Jack jumped into his next tall tale. “Okay, so, uh. You guys got that I’m bi, right? You got that? Okay. Cool, so, uh, eighth grade, right? I’ve got an eighth grade girlfriend, because that’s what you do. And we’re at the movies, because that’s what you do.”

He paused. “Fuck, I don’t know if she wants me to tell this story. Y’know what, she told her dad about me cutting off the sleeves to my shirts because I wanted to bring the eighties back. Payback, I guess… Smalls, please stop laughing. Okay, so, we’re watching a movie. I don’t remember what movie it was, ‘cause the rest of the day was way better. So I must’ve enjoyed it, because she’s fidgeting through the whole end thirty minutes, and finally it’s over and she’s like, we need to talk, blah blah blah, privacy.”

“And I’m super sure she’s about to break up with me. And I was a selfish middle schooler, so I’m not going, oh what did I do wrong, I hope nothing bad happened to her, I’m going, I’m pretty sure I paid for these tickets, and if she doesn’t pay me back, that’ll suck.”

He checked something on his burner and kept talking. “Alrighty, so, she takes me over to this little corner, near the Coke Freestyle machines, y’know? And I’m thinking, blah blah blah, selfish thoughts, and she says that sentence that you never want to hear when you’re on a date—oh, Smalls knows. She goes,  _ so I think I just got my period.  _ And I just kinda freeze up, y’know? ‘Cause I thought I was about to experience my first breakup, but in my tiny dumb mind, that was  _ so  _ much worse. So I say something dumb about health class and she does the little groan—I was a really bad eighth grade boyfriend, guys—and she runs off to the bathroom to shove toilet paper down her jeans, and we decide the best course of action is to take her back to my house, ‘cause her parents are divorced, so she couldn’t very well ask her mom for help. So we go back to my place, and she’s asking my foster mom for help, and I’m loading the washing machine, which was right near the bedrooms, and I don’t know what the fuck I did, but it just fucking…” He made a gesture with his hands that sent Mike into a fit of giggles. “Yeah, yeah, I get it. It just kinda explodes, y’know? The tube that has all the water just fuckin’ explodes and before i know it water’s everywhere and they’re running out like  _ what the fuck is happening  _ and as my girlfriend’s running out, she slips!”

Smalls cackled like she’d heard the story a million times before, and it dawned on Davey that he had, too.

He couldn’t exactly contain his discovery, and Jack was halfway through another sentence when Davey blurted, “KATHERINE!”

Jack blinked. “Yeah, Katherine. Redhead, too rich for her own good. Is that news?”

Davey spluttered. “It.. I… It is to me!”

“She never told you?”

“Obviously not!”

Jack laughed and shook his head. “Of course she didn’t, I was literally her biggest mistake. Not to say that dating me is a mistake, for people who, y’know, are, uh. Um. Okay so, uh, the onions should be good by now. So, uh. Grab your unwrapped beef. And just kinda dump it in the pan on top of the onions. Perfect. Now you’re going to stir it and chop it up into smaller bits with the spoon. As it cooks it should start looking a little crumbly. Oh! And at some point very soon you should add the cumin. Add as much as you want. Personally, I like a lot because it adds flavor, but if you’re w— of a weaker palate you can add less. Now you’re going to stir until it looks fully cooked.”

Romeo raised his hand.

“Romeo, you’ll know if it’s fully cooked because it won’t look like raw meat. Also, raw beef is significantly less dangerous than raw chicken, so even if it isn’t fully cooked it’s highly unlikely you’ll get sick. And the beef will look very crumbly. Make sure to watch your pan because it’s  _ very _ hot and I don’t really feel like filling out the forms required when any of you get injured.”

Smalls raised her hand.

“Especially not you, Smalls. Medda’ll have my head if anything happens to you. Okay, folks. Once your meat is fully cooked like mine”—Jack carefully tipped his pan slightly towards his students so they could see—“turn off your burner and move your pan to another burner that’s already off. Now we’re getting to the most fun part of all of this. First, before we do, why don’t you put your used knives and cutting boards in the sink in the back to avoid cross-contamination. I’ll wash them later.”

Davey dutifully followed this instruction, being careful to not spill any of the onion remnants on his cutting board onto his duck apron. Once his cutting board and knife had been carefully placed in the sink, he returned to his slightly burnt beef.

“Okay, everyone back? Great. So, uh, you don’t necessarily need a cutting board for this next step, but it’ll probably be easier for you to use one if you haven’t made these before. So get out your cutting boards. Oh, also. I’ve preheated this oven”—Jack gestured to the industrial oven behind him—“to 375 degrees Fahrenheit, like it says on the empanada wrapper packaging. Oh! Get those out of your baskets. You’ll need them. For the fun part.”

Romeo raised his hand. “You’ve been talking about the fun part forever, it better be the funnest, or I’m telling the fun police.”

Finch mockingly saluted. “Fun police reporting for duty.”

Jack held his hands up in surrender. “Okay! It will be. Open your empanada wrapper package thing.” He demonstrated, carefully cutting open the packaging without tearing the dough disks inside. “Wait! Fuck! Grab your sheet pan real quick and put your baking mat in it. Now we’re good. Okay.  _ Now _ grab the first empanada wrapper—careful, Buttons, those are fragile—and set it on your cutting board. Nice job, Smalls. Next, you’re going to take the spoon in your meat and scoop about a tablespoon or so into the middle of your empanada wrapper. Perfect, Ike. Okay. I want you all to watch me do this next step before you try. Get yourself a little ramekin of water—yeah, that, Romeo—and get your fingers a little wet. Now you’re going to fold the dough in half over the filling and pinch the edges together with your wet fingers. Like this. Okay, now you all try one.”

Davey tried his best to fold the empanada shell in half incorrectly, but it seemed impossible to do it any way but correctly. Luckily, Jack was too preoccupied with ensuring that Buttons didn’t accidentally burn herself with the hot meat to notice Davey’s struggle.

“Alright! Looks like you all have it. Now it’s time for the fun part. We’re going to try a decorative edge for these empanadas. If you don’t trust yourself to try it, then you can just take a fork and use the tines to press around the edges like so.” Jack demonstrated the technique, then smoothed out the edges of his empanada again. “Otherwise, I’ll teach you my favorite edge: the braided edge. Pick one end—it doesn’t matter which one, Smalls—and pinch and slightly twist the dough like this diagonally.” Jack repeated the motion slowly several times. “Keep going along the edge until you reach the end of the empanada. Don’t worry if yours looks kinda shitty. It takes a lot of practice to get this technique down.”

Davey had a dilemma. Go for the easier, uglier fork technique, or “attempt” the braided edge and make it look as shitty as possible. He opted to try the fork first, then alternate between that and the braided edge.

“Fantastic job, everyone! You are now free to form the rest of your empanadas however you wish. I’ll walk around and make sure you’re doing alright,” Jack instructed, stepping out from behind his station in the front of the class.

Davey set his first fork-edged empanada on his tray. It was time to do the worst job he possibly could on the braided edge. It didn’t seem to be that hard to screw up, but, with all his experience making challah, he could never be too careful. He was most of the way through it when Jack reached his station.

“Here, why don’t you finish that one up and I’ll help you through the next one?” Jack said.

Davey blushed. “Uh, yeah, sure, that’d be great.”

Jack moved beside Davey and took Davey’s hands in his. “Alright. We’re going to do this the Jack Kelly way, which means no cutting board, okay?” 

Davey smiled nervously and nodded.

“Okay. So. Uh. We’re going to take that next empanada wrapper and hold it in the palm of your hand.” Jack carefully cupped his hand around Davey’s to demonstrate the proper shape and set the wrapper in. “Okay, now you’re going to scoop the meat right into that divot in your palm. Great. Now wet the fingers of your other hand—good—and fold the empanada in half and seal it.” Jack closed his hand around Davey’s to do this. Davey hoped Jack couldn’t feel how fast his heart was beating. Jack took Davey’s free hand and began to guide it in the braided technique. “Remember: pinch and twist a little. Like this. Oh, that’s beautiful,” Jack sighed. He jerked upright. “Okay, uh, why don’t you just, uh, set that on your tray and try the next one on your own?”

Davey nodded mutely, unable to speak thanks to the close contact he had just had with Jack. He tried the braided style again, carefully screwing up every fourth twist so that he would be able to recognize the one he made with Jack when it came out of the oven.

“That looks great, good job.” Jack squeezed Davey’s shoulder quickly and spared him a smile before he moved on to make sure Romeo didn’t stab Finch with his fork.

Once everyone had finished forming their empanadas, Jack took his place at the front again. “Alright, one last step before these go in the oven. You may have noticed that there is a little jar of a yellowish liquid in your baskets. That’s something called an egg wash, which I’d teach you how to make if I trusted you more with eggs and if we had more time to experiment. You’re going to take a pastry brush and just, well, brush it all over your empanadas so they moisten a bit in the oven instead of get really dry.”

Davey gave up on attempting to fuck this up. There was no way anyone could screw up brushing an egg wash on.

Smalls, always eager for a chance to do so, managed to prove Davey wrong. Somehow, her egg wash ended up everywhere but her empanadas.

Once everyone’s empanadas had (finally) been successfully egg washed (some with a little help from Jack), Jack called their attention back to his station. “Okay, folks! The final step. We’re going to put our empanadas in the oven! Since we have this fantastic oven here, I’m pretty sure we can put all of ours in at once. These’ll cook for about 20 minutes. They’re done when they’re golden brown, so I’ll check them every so often to make sure they turn out alright. Bring your trays up and I’ll pop them in the oven. In the meantime, we’re cleaning, because I refuse to pick up after you again.”

Davey took his tray to the oven, then got to cleaning. He finished washing his dishes remarkably quickly, since he figured that one’s ability to wash dishes is not indicative of their cooking skills. Sarah, for example, was fantastic at washing dishes but once burned a pot of water.

No, he was not sure how. Yes, it was a relief to realize that he was indeed better that her at  _ something. _

Davey hummed quietly to himself as he puttered about his station, organizing his shiny, clean utensils the way he wanted to. 

“Hey!”

Davey yelped and nearly speared Jack with his fork, clutching at his shirt. “Fuck!”

Jack blinked, slowly pushing the fork away from him. “Yeah, that’s exactly what I wanna hear when I say hi.”

Davey attempted to stammer out a suave response, but nothing came. “Fuck,” he managed, and Jack nodded slowly.

“You okay, Dave?”

Davey was not okay. Davey was so far from okay. Davey was ready to melt into a puddle of shame and adoration for Jack. “Yeah, yeah. Just a little surprised, is all,” he eked out.

Jack’s small smile was not going to make this any easier for Davey. In yet another move typically oblivious of Davey’s slowly degrading dignity, Jack hopped up onto the counter, crossing his legs at the ankles and tilting his head. “So you wash dishes nice, huh?”

“What?”

“Everyone else is still cleaning up. Gotten a lot of practice or something?”

Davey furtively glanced around the room. Shit. Jack was right. “Uh. Something like that.”

Jack’s face changed. “Shit, I hit a vein?” Davey must have looked confused, because Jack waved one hand. “I’m taking anatomy right now and I figure if I sprinkle in a fun little reference to it here I’ll seem like a functioning human.”

Davey giggled like a five year old. “No veins hit, don’t worry.”

Jack smiled, and Davey nearly swooned into the stove when Jack’s dimples came out in their full glory.

Davey fell into Jack as the timer suddenly beeped loudly.

“Uh, hey Dave?” Jack poked Davey’s shoulder that was digging into his stomach. “That means I gotta go check on the empanadas, not that it’s time to collapse.” He paused. “Again.”

That, at least, managed to bring back some semblance of Davey’s self-respect. “Hey, fuck off!”

Jack laughed, pushing him lightly and jumping off the counter. “Not my fault you can’t walk right!” he said, walking backwards towards the oven and accidentally running into the cabinets nearby. He seemed only mildly fazed by the rest of the class deciding that that was worthy of their daily relentless mocking.

“Looks like you can’t walk right either,” Finch snarked.

Jack waved a hand to signal the class into settling down as he checked the empanadas in the oven. “Ooooh. They look perfect. I’d say come get yours out of the oven, but,” here, he looked directly at Romeo, “I’ve learned not to trust y’all with things like that. So I’ll take them out of the oven and then bring your tray to you. Sound good?” Once the general opinion of “yeah, whatever” was voiced, he shot them a thumbs-up and turned around to remove everything.

In typical “If the teacher isn’t looking they must be completely unaware of us” fashion, Romeo immediately set his elbows on Davey’s counter. “Sooooo?”

Davey at first missed the actual word, choosing to instead lament everyone’s lack of consideration for his finally clean workspace. After a moment, he managed to catch up mentally.

“Wait, what?”

“Empanadas usually don’t involve that much sugar,” Romeo said, and Davey pulled a face.

“There are, actually--”

“Jesus, I’m just trying to make idle conversation about the sickening display you forced me to watch, I’m not here for the damn lecture. Deets. Gimme.”

“No one  _ forced  _ you to watch anything.”

Romeo just raised his eyebrows and rolled his hand for Davey to share the information he was interested in.

(Add “there are other people in the class” to the reasons why maybe Davey should have developed his critical thinking skills a little more before he made the decision to sign up for this class.)

“You’re laying it on thicker than the icing on those cookies we made last class.”

Finch piped up. “Dude, I dunno what you’re talking about, but I could use a lot less of the figurative language.”

Romeo wrinkled his nose at him. “I’m taking a lot of lit classes right now. It felt right.”

“You’re a chem major. What do you need those for?”

“So I like romance novels!”

“Of course you do.”

Davey groaned and rubbed at his temples. “If I tell you about Jack will you stop?”

“Depends on how pathetic it makes you look. I need actual entertainment,” Romeo said, and Davey flipped him off. Romeo gasped. “JACK!”

“Is Romeo harassing you again, Dave?” Jack asked kindly. Romeo’s mouth dropped open.

“You would take his side in my moment of peril?”

Jack finally turned around, pulling off his oven mitts. “Romeo, I fucking love you, man, but you’ve gotta know that there is literally no circumstance in which I would take your word over Davey’s.”

Romeo pouted and stomped dramatically back to his station. “One day I’ll prove you wrong.”

“That day is not today, Romeo. Alright. I’ve got all of your trays. Stay at your stations while I bring them out so I don’t burn any of you,” Jack instructed. He managed to pass out all of the empanada trays with no burn-related incidents, and all of the students packed them up in some of the leftover takeout boxes from the first class. 

Davey waited for Jack as everyone else filed out. Romeo gave him a rather suggestive eyebrow wiggle on his way out. Davey made his best gargoyle face, and Romeo flung a hand to his forehead before he vanished out the door.

Jack finished toweling off the counters, one last sweep-away of any crumbs, and turned to Davey. “You ready?”

“As I’ll ever be. You never know what Kath has in store for these.”

Jack frowned. “What do you mean?”

Davey had a three-second panic. “I, uh, y’know. She’s a writer with her dad’s unlimited credit card. She comes up with some weird shit.”

Jack tilted his head. “Yeah, that makes sense. So you seriously didn’t know we dated?”

Davey sputtered. “Uh. Not really. I mean, that was a long time ago and I didn’t know you until we got here!”

“Yeah, but… she’s literally your best friend. Like, since babies best friend.”

“She didn’t tell me everything. Especially then. Her dad didn’t like how much she went out, so I think she had to decide whether she wanted to spend time with you or me.” Davey didn’t mention that he had known that Katherine had a boyfriend, he just didn’t know it was  _ Jack _ .

Jack’s eyes got a little sadder than Davey was used to. “Fuck, I’m sorry.”

“It’s not your fault she’s gotta be close with her dad to get through school.”

“Yeah, but… y’know. I didn’t really ever have to like.” He pursed his lips. “I never had to know half of her, you know? I was never around her when she had to be…” He waved his hands. “Proper. And you were stuck in that pot full of weasels, I couldn’t have done that if I didn’t have someone that I got to be batshit with.”

“Yeah, well.” The nagging little thought in the back of Davey’s brain was brought to the front. “You knew about me?”

“Of course I did. Kathy’s mad about you, always has been.”

Davey clicked his tongue. “Got it. I just… I knew you existed. In the theoretical sense. But I never knew everything about all of Katherine’s secrets before here. We had this sort of… thing about the risks of it.”

Jack blinked, but before he could ask anything, or before Davey could even elaborate, they wound up in front of Katherine’s apartment building, and Davey sucked in a deep breath. “Okay, ready to feel underdressed?”

“Am I ever?”

Davey choked out a laugh and opened the door for him so that they could speed-walk to the elevator and stand next to a woman and her purse dog for thirteen floors before she finally got out and they had the time to relax before the elevator doors opened and Jack’s face dropped faster than light.

Katherine whipped around, a plastic spoon in her mouth and a box of unidentifiable takeout in her hand. She promptly spit out the spoon and spun in a circle, flinging her arms out and nearly losing her food.

“Jack Kelly, welcome to your character creation night!”

Davey snuck a glance at Jack, who seemed to be on the verge of an aneurysm. “Davey,” he hissed under his breath as Sarah, wearing flannel pajamas and a witch hat, played a slide whistle loudly. “You didn’t tell me this was  _ nerd shit.” _

“You’ll love it,” Davey insisted. “Kath’s a great DM, and there’s food.”

“I brought food, Dave, on the assumption that this was a  _ normal  _ party.”

“Since when does free food not make everything better?”

“When I’m forced into your sick plot to make me a fucking  _ table-top gamer. _ ”

Katherine clapped her hands. “So! This is sorta costume DnD, but since I’m the only one with a disposable income,” Spot raised his glass at that, “I buy everybody one fancy thing and they make the rest themselves.”

Sarah pointed at her hat. “This was like. Fifty dollars. And then I have my pajamas, because she’s gay!”

Jack stared at her. “You’re getting a minor in fucking Creative Writing. Creative Writing, and your character is a gay witch. That’s… that’s your description.”

Sarah blinked. “Yeah. And she wears pajamas. That’s important, too.”

Davey figured this was an opportune time to produce his Swarovski crystal encrusted Viking helmet.

Jack held up his hand. “I get this one. I get it. You draw your powers from the fancy hat.”

Davey frowned. “I just… I don’t know, I never had one before. I thought it’d be fun.”

Katherine nodded solemnly. “He draws his powers from the fancy hat.”

“Why?”

“We saw it online,” Katherine said, “and we couldn’t really justify the purchase to ourselves until there was a reason.”

Race spoke up after an unusual period of silence. “I said having the money was enough justification, but y’know. So, Davey, what’d you bring us tonight? Some of your fancy-ass—”

“Race,” Davey interrupted. “Let’s go have a discussion in the kitchen.”

“But all I was wondering was—”

“Race. Kitchen. Now.”

“Do I have to?” Race whined, spinning the propeller on his hat sadly.

“Yes.” Davey took Race’s hand and pulled him into the kitchen, shutting the door behind him. “Okay. What’s up.”

“I just—Look. Whenever it’s DnD night I don’t have dinner beforehand because I trust that you’ll make something awesome for us to eat. But now you’ve betrayed me with these sorry excuses for—what did Jack call them again?—oh yeah, empanadas. What the hell, dude.”

“I—well. Okay. This is going to sound terrible,” Davey began.

“I’ll be the judge of that. Seeing as your  _ usually incredible _ food looks barely edible tonight.”

“Okay! So. I signed up for Jack’s cooking class.”

“Davey. You’ve got to be kidding me. You’re the best cook I’ve ever met.”

“Thanks, dude. But anyway. That was kind of the issue. I can’t, like, be an amazing cook and be in a cooking class, right?”

Race stared at Davey for a moment. “You’re an idiot.”

“Whoa, okay.”

“Y’know, Davey, some people deal with their enormous crushes on others in less idiotic ways, like pining from a distance or actually talking to them.” Davey tried to speak, but Race shushed him. “I get it. Jack’s cute and you’ve got the perfect height difference. We’ve all done stupid shit for cute guys. But this is gross. And honestly? Really unfair to Jack.”

Davey blinked at Race, shellshocked.

“Don’t worry, though. Your secret’s safe with me. For now. You better fix this soon, or it’s all gonna come crashing down around you.” With that, Race opened the door and returned to the party, leaving Davey gaping like a fish.

If he was being honest, he’d never expected any meaningful relationship advice out of the guy who’d infamously tried to ask out a girl by informing her that he was tall enough to ride the Ferris wheel.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> hello!! thank you all for reading!!  
> happy valentine's day (because it IS still february 14th in our time zone)!! hope you enjoy this Very Late but Very Long update to SBL!  
> also! a lil note (from landlessbud): i'm not by any means fluent in Spanish and i tried using some slang from dialects that are Not My Own (i'm half argentine so i've got All That Fun Stuff going on lol), so if i fucked it up please let me know!!!  
> also empanadas are SO GOOD and if you ever fry an empanada you can get out rn bc baked ones are so much better.  
> oh!!! one final thing: we started a writing blog! check out @seedofadream on tumblr and give it a follow if you like our writing!


	5. Empanada Time 2: The Cupcakening

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Jack decides that any good cooking teacher should teach a cupcake class, and Davey screws up massively.

“It occurred to me,” Jack said, then paused to purse his lips, “that a beginner’s cooking class should involve me teaching you how to do basic things. I polled all of you, and only Davey knows what a double boiler is. Love you, dude.”

Another pause, and Davey felt the uncomfortable stares of several college students who knew that they had been shown up.

“So,” Jack continued, “I was like, huh. I’ve been teaching them random recipes, but not how to actually cook in a general sense. So I thought, how do I remedy that?”

“You teach us how to cook,” Smalls said, her voice deadpan.

Jack pointed at her. “That was my first thought, yes! But fuck that! We’re making cupcakes!”

“I’ll tell Mama,” Smalls threatened, and Jack rolled his eyes.

“This is her recipe. Until you make it perfectly, I’m the most loved Larkin child.”

Two middle fingers followed, and Jack clicked his tongue. “Are we ready or no?”

“Oh, yes, Mr. Kelly, of course,” Finch sarcastically simpered. “I can’t wait to get started.”

“I like your fake attitude. Davey, are you ready?”

“As I’ll ever be.”

“Good, you are the only person in this room who matters.”

“ _ I _ don’t matter?” Romeo whined, edging close to a melodramatic sob, and Jack looked him directly in the eyes.

“No.”

Romeo dramatically collapsed over his station.

“Hey! That’s a health hazard!” Jack winced. “Speaking of which, Mike and Ike are sick.”

“They got food poisoning,” Smalls added, and Jack sighed.

“Not, as I have had to inform my mother, because of me. Feel free to text them that you hope they feel better. But right now, it’s cupcake time.”

The students cheered with varying levels of sincerity, headed to the back to wash their hands, and put on their aprons. Davey found his signature duck apron and tied it on carefully before returning to his station.

“Alrighty, folks! You’ll notice your baskets are filled to the brim with a ton of different ingredients today, and that’s because baking is like chemistry. It takes a lot of different chemical reactions to get the flavors and textures you want. Be very careful to only use what I tell you to use—not all of these ingredients are for the cupcakes. Some are for the frosting,” Jack explained.

“What kind of cupcakes are we making, by the way?” Buttons asked.

“Shit! We’re, ah. We’re making chocolate cupcakes with a vanilla buttercream topped with a strawberry-raspberry jam mix and chopped hazelnuts.”

Buttons looked confused. “Hazelnuts?”

“Cobnuts, filberts, uh… you get the idea,” Jack replied.

Buttons asked again, her voice cracking slightly. “ _ Hazelnuts?” _

“...Yes?”

Buttons’s face contorted into an expression of absolute disgust, and yeah, Davey recognized that face, too. (When somebody looked down and kept walking when Esther Jacobs said hello, she did not take kindly to it.)

“What? They add flavor and a nice crunch to these cupcakes.”

“The name’s terrible,” Buttons said. Then, after a moment, “I hate it.”

“Oh, yeah. Yeah, Animal Crossing says I should use filbert, so I do.”

“ _ Animal Crossing? _ ” Finch interjected. “Fucking nerd.”

“Leave him alone, at least he knows the truth,” Buttons said, and then, after a moment of silence across the classroom, “ _ Hazelnuts.” _

“Okay, folks. Back to the recipe. I really don’t want to pay to rent this room for an extra half hour, so we better get started. Grab your stand mixer bowl and take it out for now. Oh, also—put the whisk attachment on the stand mixer. Careful, Smalls, I can’t afford to replace any if you break them. Okay. Cool. Everyone got their mixer bowl detached? Here’s how to do it if you’re having trouble,” Jack said, demonstrating with a quick twist and upward pull. “Got it? Awesome. Okay. So. Grab the containers marked with flour, granulated sugar, cocoa powder, baking soda, baking powder, and salt. Make sure that it’s the granulated sugar and NOT the powdered sugar. The powdered sugar is for the frosting. Do not touch it right now. I’m not kidding, Smalls. Cool. Now put all of those in the bowl—careful, Davey, don’t let it blow up in your face—and reattach the bowl to the mixer. Fantastic. Wow, it’s a lot quieter here today.”

Davey hummed to himself as he worked, resisting the strong temptation to lick the sugar right off his fingers. Once his ingredients were all in the bowl, he carefully replaced it without spilling anything. He knew the next step was most likely mixing the ingredients, but he didn’t want to push his luck.

Davey didn’t notice Jack’s quizzical look as he stared off into space, perfectly prepared for the next step.

Once Jack had helped Smalls keep from accidentally tipping over her entire stand mixer, he returned to his station at the front. “Alright, folks! Next step. It sounds a lot simpler than it is: we’re going to mix the dry ingredients. Wait!” he exclaimed as he heard Romeo’s mixer start to whir. “Don’t start yet. You have to mix at the lowest speed on your mixer like so.” Jack demonstrated, slightly turning his mixer so everyone could see. “Got it? Now you can start.  _ Slowly. _ ”

Davey, seeing an opportunity to screw up, turned his mixer up one setting higher than the lowest. Other than a slight puff of cocoa powder that dusted his nose, nothing happened. He frowned, noting that Jack seemed perfectly happy to help Finch keep from making his dry ingredients explode.

After a while of watching Jack put out metaphorical fires, he finally got rewarded with attention. “Done already?” Jack asked, sidling up to Davey’s station. Davey nodded, and Jack smiled suddenly, the corners of his eyes crinkling and his dimples showing and shit he was talking—

“Hold still for just a sec, okay?”

Davey blinked, and Jack seemed to take that as some kind of confirmation that it was alright to start swiping his fingers at Davey’s nose in a way that was oddly reminiscent of his parents’ cat.

“What are you doing?”

“You got powder on your nose,” Jack said, like it was obviously a sensible reason. “I mean. Yeah, a wet towel probably would’ve been optimal, but who has time to go to the sink and get one, y’know?”

“Uh. Yeah. Totally. Gotcha.” Davey, thrown off-kilter, nodded and nervously giggled a little.

“I. uh.” Jack stopped and smiled, seeming a little surprised. “I should probably get back to teaching the rest of this recipe. Looks like everyone’s done,” he mumbled, pushing off of Davey’s station and returning to the front.

“Everybody got their dry ingredients mixed?” Jack asked loudly. The class murmured its assent. “Fantastic. Now you’re going to take all of your wet ingredients except one packet of vanilla and dump them straight into the mixer. You’ll notice that your eggs are pre-cracked. I still don’t trust you guys with eggs, so enjoy that. It won’t happen in the real world of cooking.”

“Jack?” Davey raised his hand.

“Yes, Dave?”

“Why don’t I have pre-cracked eggs in my basket?”

“Oh yeah, shit. Uh, sorry Dave. I got tired of cracking eggs. Here’s two eggs for you,” he said, producing an egg carton. “I trust you to crack them yourself. Sound good?”

“Yeah, thanks,” Davey said, cursing whatever made his voice waver and perfectly cracking two eggs into his mixer without a second thought.

“Okay, folks. You may have noticed that this looks like not nearly enough liquid for a good cupcake batter, and you are... absolutely correct. That’s because the last ingredient of this batter is really hot water. Please grab your  _ glass _ measuring cup and set it on the counter so I,” Jack produced a large electric kettle, “can fill it up with water. Normally I just nuke stuff, but this needs to be really hot,  _ and  _ I thought having a kettle on hand might make me seem professional. Take notes, folks. Also I don’t want you guys to burn yourselves because I definitely do not trust you with anything remotely hot.”

Smalls wasted no time before interrupting him. “You let us cook with frying pans last week, bro.”

“That’s in the past now. Anyway: I’m coming around to fill up your measuring cups with hot water. Do NOT add it to your batter yet, and don’t touch it either. You  _ will _ burn yourself and it won’t be pretty. Got it?”

“GOT IT!” Romeo yelled immediately after sticking his finger in his hot water.

“Dios mío, Romeo. You trying to win a Darwin Award?” Jack led Romeo to the sink in the back, running cold water over his burnt finger while muttering Spanish curses.

Once Romeo stopped making an odd squealing noise from pain, Jack resumed pouring the hot water. “Okay, folks. This is the moment of truth. Start your mixers on low—” Jack turned his on to low— “and slowly pour in the hot water in additions. Don’t pour it all in at once. Please, for the love of all that is holy, don’t let it splash outside of your bowl. It will make your life, and therefore my life, infinitely more painful. Plus your cupcakes won’t have the right texture. Good, Buttons.”

Following Jack’s directions, Davey turned his mixer on to low and slowly poured in his measuring cup of water. Still shaken from Jack’s overt flirting, he didn’t notice that he had reverted to his instincts of practically professional baking.

“Great job, everyone! Now turn your mixer up to medium and let it mix for two minutes. This beats more air into the batter, which makes a fluffier cupcake. It also prevents the eggs from literally cooking inside your batter until all the temperatures neutralize,” Jack explained.

“Oh, so like equilibrium?” Romeo asked.

“Uh… yes? I think? I’m not a science person,” Jack replied. “I paint, and I cook. And I try to pay my bills. Thank you for your contribution to that cause, by the way. Anyways. Get your cupcake wrappers out of your baskets and start lining your pans.”

Rooting through his basket, Davey discovered  _ As You Like It  _ cupcake wrappers. On top of that, his favorite quote, and he  _ knew  _ Jack knew it was his favorite quote. (“If thou remember’st not the slightest folly, etc. etc.” for those unfamiliar with Davey’s ranking of every romantic quote he’d ever loved.) Looking around, he realized that Jack had personalized each of his students’ cupcake wrappers, and he had to try not to cry from how sweet that was. (Romeo had “sugar, honey, ice tea” as a periodic table. Davey needed to know where Jack shopped.)

“Okay, folks. Now that it’s been two minutes, you can turn off your mixers. Please lift the beater out of your mixer and let it drip into your bowl of mix, like so.” Jack demonstrated by lifting the top of his mixer out of the bowl. “This is so it won’t drip all over your counter when you pour the batter in. Now, I hope you saved your glass measuring cup. You’re going to need it in a moment. Grab two plates and set the measuring cup on one of them. Once you’re sure the beater isn’t going to drip much more, take it off your stand mixer and quickly walk it to the back sink. Then unlock the bowl from the stand and set it on the other plate.” Jack paused to ensure that everyone was following his directions. “Great. Now you’re going to pour  _ some _ of the batter that’s in your big bowl into the smaller measuring cup so it’ll be easier to pour into the pan liners. Good, Smalls.”

Davey quickly and carefully poured his batter into his measuring cup, making sure none of it spilled. He considered starting to pour the cupcake batter into the pans but then remembered that he was still trying to be incognito about his non-lack of baking skills.

“Everyone ready? Awesome. Now you’re going to fill each cupcake liner about three quarters of the way full. They don’t need to be perfect, just make sure they’re consistent.” Jack began pouring the batter into his cupcake pan. “Once you run out of batter in your measuring cup, refill it  _ carefully _ from your big bowl.”

Davey nodded, then began filling his cupcake pan with twelve perfectly level cups of mix. Looking up after finishing, he realized that he had completed the task faster than even Jack. Warning alarms began going off in his head.

It was like all of Jaws was compressed into a second and a half. Dolly zoom, ominous theme music at fifty times the speed, shark kills things, shark kills things, credits. That was how long it took Davey to spiral.

“Davey? You okay?” Jack asked, suddenly by Davey’s side.

“Wha— oh. Oh. Yes. Yes. Of course I’m okay. No problems here!” Davey half-grimaced, half-smiled, waving Jack away so he couldn’t see the perfect pattern in Davey’s pan.

“Okay then. I’m gonna head back up to the front of the class. Let me know if you need anything,” Jack replied. “I’m here to help you. You’re literally paying me to do that.”

Davey giggled nervously and nodded. Jack headed back towards his station.

“Great job with the batter pouring, folks! Now we’re going to pop these bad boys in the oven for 18 minutes. The cool thing with this recipe is that it always takes exactly 18 minutes to cook, no matter what oven you’re baking it in. Trust me. I’ve made it a  _ lot _ . So. Bring your cupcake pans up to this handy-dandy commercial oven we’ve got here that’s preheated to 350 degrees Fahrenheit and pop them in. Everybody say thanks, Jack, for that one.”

“Thanks, Jack, for that one,” repeated Romeo. A hush fell over the room. “Come on! I thought everyone was gonna say it!”

Jack grinned. “Knew I’d get you on that one. Now, I wasn’t kidding. Get on up here with your cupcake trays and stick them in the oven.”

Everyone lined up in front of the oven. Davey made sure to land near the middle so his accidental perfection wouldn’t be as noticeable. Unfortunately, with two students gone, the middle wasn’t a particularly fantastic hiding place.

“Whoa, Dave. Those are some good looking cupcakes you’ve got there,” Smalls commented, peeking over his shoulder.

Davey started, nearly dropping his tray but expertly navigating it at the last minute so it didn’t fall. Years of experience of baking with Les had taught him how to prevent disaster. He glared at Smalls, who barely hid her smile.

“Nice catch!” Jack quipped.

Davey wanted to disappear. Everything would be ruined if Jack looked down at his tray.

Sure enough, Jack looked down at the tray. “Nice job, Davey. I’ve taught you well.”

Davey blushed and hoped that that would hide how worried he was about potentially being a better baker than Jack. (Which, not to brag, but how many pie baking competitions had Davey broken into to submit his pie at the last second and still won? Three.)

Once everyone had returned to their stations and Jack had set a timer on his phone, he continued lecturing. “Since I’m a bit lazy and we don’t have a ton of time in here, I’m gonna have y’all pour the rest of your batter into that very convenient tupperware container that’s in your box. You can take this batter home and bake it later and maybe get in a little decorating practice on your own if you so desire! Though I honestly don’t think any of you will do that except maybe Davey. Love you, man.”

Davey felt like his face was on fire. That was the problem with Jack, truly: he was in general an exceptional person and wonderful crush material, but he had the least clear intents out of any man on Earth. Davey, pining gremlin that he was, got thrown a “love you,” then got a “man” tacked onto it immediately. Curse him, with every ounce of Wizardology that Davey had ever learned from that shiny picture book.

“Okay. Once you’ve got that done, you’re going to grab your convenient second mixing bowl. I know, isn’t it great?” Jack laughed. Davey wanted that laugh to be the soundtrack to his life. “Lock it into your stand mixer, just like the last one. Now attach the ceramic beater—the weird triangular attachment—to the mixer part. Good job, Finch. Once you’ve done that, you’re going to unwrap those three sticks of salted butter and put them in the bowl. Be careful—they’re very soft because they’ve been left out for a while, which is what you want with this frosting. Once you’ve gotten all the butter off your hands and thrown away all the wrappers, start your mixer on a low speed to begin beating air into the butter.”

Davey, already familiar with this process, was almost a step ahead of Jack the entire time. Seeing the powdered sugar and vanilla in his box, he made the educated guess that those were the other two ingredients in the frosting and plucked them out. 

“Okay, folks. See that bag of white powdery stuff? No, Romeo, that’s not cocaine. It’s powdered sugar. And you need a shit ton of it for this frosting. Anyone want to guess how much powdered sugar this is?” Jack asked the class.

Davey casually picked up the bag, almost immediately recognizing its true weight.

Buttons raised her hand.

“Yes, Buttons?”

“That’s about .9 liters of powdered sugar.”

Jack paused and scratched his head. “Hey, Buttons. I, ah, have no idea what that means. We don’t use liters in America.”

“But we should!” Davey piped up. “However, this powdered sugar wasn’t measured by volume—it was measured by weight. This is exactly one pound of powdered sugar.”

The room was dead silent for a few seconds until Romeo broke it. “You make me wanna shove your head down a toilet sometimes.”

Jack sighed. “Romeo, if you give Davey a swirlie I’ll sue you for emotional damage. Anyways. What was the point?” He paused. “Ah, yes. Davey, you were exactly right. Kudos to you for your terrifying accuracy. This is one pound of powdered sugar. And  _ all _ of it is going in your frosting.”

Several members of the class made slightly horrified faces.

“I promise you it won’t taste like shit.”

Someone took a breath to begin speaking.

“Romeo, we’re not going to talk about the technicalities of different types of shit. You know what I mean. Let’s keep going so I don’t have to pay overtime for this room. Just like your wet ingredients from earlier, you’re going to add your powdered sugar in additions. Please do at least three. Otherwise it  _ will _ explode in your face. Trust me. Oh, and make sure to beat your frosting on medium until everything’s incorporated and it starts to get fluffy between additions.”

Davey thought about how if he made one misstep (well, non-misstep. Perfect step. Whatever.) today, everything would explode in his face. He didn’t realize that he had completed the powdered sugar mix-in process perfectly until he absentmindedly turned his mixer off. Shit, fuck, shit—

“Perfect, Dave, holy shit. Y'all, this is why Davey is the only one of you that counts.”

“I am your  _ sister _ ,” Smalls said, indignant, and Jack just shrugged.

“Sucks for you. Anyway, now we wanna add some vanilla bean paste! It’s like regular vanilla except thicker and it tastes how it smells, unlike regular vanilla. Go on, try it!”

Davey already knew what was coming, but he feigned hesitancy as he dipped his finger in the vanilla and brought it to his lips. 

Romeo stared at his finger after trying the vanilla. “How is that so good?”

“Easy,” Jack replied. “It’s $30 for a tiny bottle of this magical shit.”

Romeo’s eyes went wide.

“I expensed it to the university. Normally I wouldn’t be able to afford this stuff. You can use regular vanilla in this recipe, too, but I like this stuff better.”

Davey thought about the massive container of vanilla bean paste sitting in his pantry that had been gifted to him years ago. He had not appreciated that nearly as much as he should’ve.

(Of course Katherine had given it to him. Who else would give someone an entire tub of vanilla bean paste that they had never asked for? Granted, she  _ had _ insisted upon receiving a cake in return.)

“Okay, folks. Now that you somewhat trust me about this, add about a tablespoon of the paste to your frosting. It’s the spoon that says tablespoon. This is not hard.”

Davey was fairly certain of his capabilities in eyeballing measurements, so he opted to forego the spoon. Since the frosting wouldn’t be baked anyway, he wouldn’t be screwing up any chemical reactions by not measuring precisely. He poured in what looked like the right amount and set his mixer to medium.

A step that Jack… had not told him to take. Fuck, fuck, fuuuuuck.

“Davey, no, next we’re gonna… um. Do exactly what you’re doing. Okay, copy Davey, I guess?”

Davey was so completely fucked. He had just completely blown his cover, and he knew it. He did want to finish the cupcakes though, so, in his total shame, he decided to stay. He could  _ feel  _ Jack staring, so he kept his eyes fixed firmly on his mixer.

Jack’s alarm started going off— _ Friday _ , for some wretched reason. Regrettably, this was the man that Davey had casually handed his entire heart to.

Romeo shrieked out a laugh before stuffing his kitchen towel in his mouth. Davey was so proud.

Jack pursed his lips. “It’s a banger, okay? Shut up and get your cupcakes. I hope you burn yourself. And then put your towel in the damn yucky-bucket.”

He pointed at the plastic bucket Davey had dubbed the yucky-bucket, the name written on in pink sharpie. (So far, it only held a few towels that had been contaminated by raw eggs. Romeo’s would be the first saliva contamination.)

They all made their way over in their trademark disorderly fashion and put on their Jack-mandated oven mitts before snatching their own tray and rushing back to their stations. Most of them, Smalls especially, seemed eager to conceal their Cupcake Sins.

Davey’s were fucking perfect. FUCK.

(The fact that there was not yet mind-reading technology available to his mother was truly a blessing from whatever higher power there was. Davey would literally be turning on a spit over an Ewok-style bonfire if Esther knew his Daily Swear Count.)

He needed to escape.

He slid across the floor with the help of his centuries-old sneakers and their lack of any tread at all. In one move, he threw his cupcake tray onto the counter and scrambled past Jack to the door.

“BATHROOM!” he yelled behind him as he ran.

(He was essentially baking emergency John Wick.)

He slammed the bathroom door behind him, his lungs heaving, and he debated sliding down to the floor before striking the idea out for health reasons. Instead, he slunk over to a sink and stared at himself in the heavily graffitied mirror. “You are Davey Jacobs,” he whispered to his reflection. “You may be an absolute idiot, but you’re not too stupid to get yourself out of this mess you’ve made. Even if it is absolutely hopeless.” His grip on the sink tightened for a moment as he leaned towards the mirror, then sighed, relaxed (as much as he could), and pulled out his phone.

_ YesIAmDaveyJacobs: help. _

_ SareBear: what’s up? _

_ YesIAmDaveyJacobs: so, remember that cooking class? the one that jack’s teaching? _

_ SareBear: david jacobs, u awful skank _

_ YesIAmDaveyJacobs: that’s not fair. I’m in crisis. _

_ SareBear: skank in crisis* sorry _

_ YesIAmDaveyJacobs: rude but fair. however. _

_ SareBear: if u say he's different i’m gonna kick ur whore ass into temple _

_ YesIAmDaveyJacobs: shut up and let me complain. _

_ SareBear: u have thirty seconds before the ass-kicking proceeds and i leave u to fend for urself against fifteen jewish mothers _

_ YesIAmDaveyJacobs: i accidentally baked cupcakes too perfect and now he's gonna know i’ve been lying to him this whole time and he's gonna hate me and i will die a spinster hag from a victorian era novel _

_ SareBear: as fun as that sounds to watch happen (chris traeger voice) LITERALLY just tell him the truth _

_ YesIAmDaveyJacobs: see, the thing you’re forgetting to take into account is that i am a fucking coward. _

_ SareBear: face jack or i tell mrs epstein u were the one that fed her matzo balls to the dog _

_ YesIAmDaveyJacobs: you wouldn’t dare. _

_ YesIAmDaveyJacobs: ...sarah? _

_ YesIAmDaveyJacobs: FINE. _

_ SareBear: if u chicken out be aware that i have her number on speed dial :) we play bridge when i go home for winter _

_ YesIAmDaveyJacobs: why are you like this _

_ SareBear: im sorry mama’s friends don't love u like they used to. ur college boy charm wore off _

_ YesIAmDaveyJacobs: :( _

_ SareBear: jewish moms say gay college dropout rights!!!! anyways go tell jack the truth and then—CHASTELY—kiss him n introduce him to mama _

_ SareBear: if he is different then prove it. _

_ SareBear: yes i will continue to slutshame u until u tell him. _

_ SareBear: are u telling him. _

Davey rolled his eyes and turned off his phone. Realizing he had missed almost ten minutes of class by this point, he quickly washed his hands and rushed back down the hall to the classroom. Outside the door, he could hear Jack lecturing again.

“...and that’s how you mince things properly. Romeo, I did not bring any band-aids, so you better be extra careful with that knife. Got it?”

Davey knew for a fact that that was a damn lie. Jack, without fail, ALWAYS had  _ Go, Diego, Go!  _ band aids in his backpack.

He was in far too deep. Taking a deep breath and calming his nerves, Davey stepped back into the classroom and quietly made his way back to his station. Jack, who was helping Smalls, had his back to the doorway.

Davey furtively glanced around. It seemed that all that had happened in the time that he was out of the room was an extremely long lecture on knife safety and a mincing demonstration, as Romeo, brow furrowed, slowly chopped some hazelnuts. Deciding to use his observational skills, Davey looked for his hazelnuts so he could begin mincing them as well.

He dug through his basket and searched all the cabinets and shelves in his station, but he could not find those damn nuts anywhere.

His brain went in its normal counterproductive circle.  _ Stand on the chair. You know you want to. It's been almost fifteen minutes since you drew attention to yourself in an inconveniencing manner. Stand on the fucking chair or you'll die. _

“Where are my nuts?” Davey yelled, standing on a chair. Every shred of the dignity he had once prided himself upon had disappeared. 

Jack laughed. “I’ve got the filberts. Don’t worry,” he replied, handing Davey a large bag of hazelnuts. 

Davey, suddenly cowed by his outburst, meekly stepped down from his chair.

In less than thirty seconds, Davey saw Romeo receive the “he likes to be tall” meme with Davey’s face edited on it. He fucking hated life.

“Hey, Davey,” Jack said, and nope! Life was a remarkable gift. “I trust you know your way around a knife, so just mince some of these for the tops of your cupcakes and you’ll be set.”

Davey nodded, as he seemed to have lost the ability to speak, and began mincing his hazelnuts.

“Okay, folks! Now that y’all have finished mincing your hazelnuts, it’s time to put everything together. Normally, when I make these, I pipe the frosting on with a piping bag so it looks a little nicer, but piping bags are a) difficult to learn how to use quickly and b) a pain in the ass to wash, so we’re just going to spread the frosting on. Also, you may have noticed a small jar of a reddish jam in your baskets. That’s a strawberry-raspberry jam combination, and it’s going to be absolutely delicious on your cupcakes. We’ll worry about that in a moment once you’ve gotten your frosting on all your cupcakes,” Jack instructed.

Davey could tell what the plan was: frost the cupcakes, spread a little jam on the frosting, and sprinkle hazelnuts on top. He went on autopilot, flat-top frosting his cupcakes for a cleaner look. Once he finished, he opened the small jar of jam and began gently setting small spoonfuls in the center of each cupcake’s frosting (Of course he tried the jam first. It was delicious. Davey could tell it was homemade.). Finally, he sprinkled his minced hazelnuts on top and plated his cupcakes on a nice dish he found at his station.

“Holy shit, Dave.”

Davey looked up in horror.

Jack stared back at him, a questioning look in his eyes.

Davey could see trouble on the horizon, so he did what any good pirate would.

He grabbed his backpack and he fucking  _ bolted. _

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> hey folks!!   
> thank you so much for waiting for us! school and life have both been eating up our time and this chapter has been an absolute DOOZY to write! this recipe is one of bud's personal cupcake recipes, so we're not going to publish it (but feel free to DM landlessbud on tumblr if you want it because it is DELICIOUS!).  
> please leave a comment if you liked the chapter and follow our writing blog @seedofadream on tumblr!!


	6. The Crutchie Interlude

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Davey hasn't been doing too well since last Monday's class.

Davey stared intently at his sixth perfectly braided loaf of challah.

“Hey, Davey?” Crutchie asked, mildly startling him.

“Hm?”

“Mind if I throw a rager?”

“Hm?”

“Cool. Finch is gonna come over, we’re gonna make out on the couch for three hours and then watch iCarly.”

“Hm?”

“Good talk, dude.”

So maybe Davey hadn’t handled the situation well last class, and maybe he’d spent two full days stress baking to try to ignore his feelings. At least he could still make decent desserts. He wasn’t exactly sure what he’d do with everything he’d made, but Crutchie sure wasn’t complaining. 

Crutchie reached delicately over Davey’s arm to grab his massive plastic bowl of muffins, nearly knocking over the vase that used to be for flowers before it was converted to a crepe holder. Of course, Davey had elected to use this moment to turn around and clean up a bit in the sink before continuing with his baking.

“Fuck, dude!” Davey exclaimed. “You scared me!”

“Davey. I’ve been here all day. This is the first time you’ve noticed me.”

Davey blinked, his eyebrows furrowing, and Crutchie sighed, running a hand down his face. “Listen really well. I have been talking to you for two hours on end. You have literally never said anything with more than one syllable.”

Another blink. “That doesn’t sound like me.”

“No, it fucking doesn’t. That’s why I’m worried about you.”

Davey laughed nervously. “Me? Nothing wrong with me here! You know how I get at the start of a new term.”

“Pardon my French, but you’ve never been in this bad of shape, pal.”

“You didn’t swear.”

“Showing actual concern for your wellbeing is my swearing. Go talk to Jack and then ship this shit back to your synagogue.”

Davey frowned. “I don’t know if they’d like that.”

“Oh my god. It’s a fucking joke. Please sleep.”

“Sleep.”

“Yeah, sleep. Get it.”

“Wait. How long has it been?”

Crutchie pinched the bridge of his nose and sighed again. “Two days. Two fucking days you’ve woken me up with the goddamn oven timer at all fucking hours of the night.”

“Swear jar,” Davey reminded, and Crutchie raised his eyebrows.

“You’re gonna talk about the swear jar? Besides, my quarters go to the fund for your fancy chocolate chips. You don’t need to be enabled to bake more.”

“I thought you liked my double chocolate chunk cookies.”

“Not when you’ve baked four dozen of them in two days!”

“Really? Four dozen?”

“I sent one to your mom, one to Kath and Sarah, one to Jack, and one’s in the freezer.”

“YOU SENT ONE TO WHO?”

“Your mom. I thought she’d like them. You don’t call her enough.”

“Not what I  _ fucking  _ meant.”

“Swear jar,” Crutchie said. “And besides, Jack’s hopeless when it comes to anything cookie related. Besides sugar cookies. And even those can be on thin ice at times.”

“Crutchie,” Davey said, giving him his patented Please Don’t Fuck Up My Life look. “I am begging you to tell Jack you bought those at Safeway.”

“Since when do Safeway cookies come on a  _ Little Women  _ paper plate covered with saran wrap, Dave?”

“I swear to fucking God, Crutch.”

“You have to work this out with Jack. I’m just…. Expediting the process a bit.” He shrugged. “Also, I texted him and told him that you’re stress baking. I think he thinks it’s sorta hot, if it’s any consolation.”

“The whole fucking premise of my being in that cooking class was that I would make him think that I didn’t know how to cook!”

“Are you hearing yourself?”

“Yes! I am making a limited to average amount of sense!”

“Isn’t the entire premise of your presence in that class at least a little manipulative?”

“I—” Davey started.

“No. Dave. You’ve been lying to Jack, the guy you have an enormously obvious crush on, for weeks just so you could get in his pants. That’s not okay, bud.”

“The point wasn’t getting into his pants. The point was developing a greater friendship that would lead to a series of casual dates, increased emotional honesty and intimacy, and eventually a serious relationship—”

“That would lead to getting in his pants. I’m summarizing so you don’t have to.”

Davey groaned and looked at the ceiling, choosing to focus on the crack that looked like a cow instead of Crutchie.

There was a little ding, and then Crutchie made a satisfied noise. “He’ll be here in thirty minutes. Go shower, you smell like vanilla and B.O.”

“He’ll be—What??? Crutchie! You’ve betrayed me!”

Crutchie had to practically shove Davey out of the kitchen and into the shower. “If you’re still in there when he gets here, I’m letting him in, no matter how naked you are.”

“Okay, okay, fine. I still hate you.”

“Congratulations! You don’t mean that, but I appreciate it all the same.”

Davey gave Crutchie a dark look.

“Okay, I’m leaving. Get in the fucking shower.”

“Fine, Mom.”

“Gross. Moms have actual responsibilities. I do this out of the kindness of my heart. Also, I’m really afraid for the general population if Jack gets any more confused. Shower time, fool.”

Davey whined but listened.

 

He spent five minutes debating over which shirt he didn’t all of a sudden hate, and with roughly two minutes left, made it back to the living area.

From his fetal position on the couch, he squinted at the kitchen.

He really had made a lot of fucking food. Cupcakes covered every surface, the vase of crepes looked more like a cool art installation than a last-ditch effort for storage space, and there were enough cakes for his friends’ next four birthdays.

Also, three platters of pancakes. Davey didn’t know where he’d gotten all those eggs on such short notice.

Challah French toast for breakfast for three months didn’t sound so bad, though. As long as Crutchie didn’t murder him first. He wasn’t a huge fan of repeat breakfasts.

Then, the doorbell rang, and Davey, (sleep deprived, hadn’t-eaten-anything-except-chocolate-chips-for-two-days Davey,) stood up to face his death.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> thank you all for your patience!! we are Very Busy people so at this point we're lucky to find any time to write together.  
> we hope you enjoyed this chapter and aren't too angry at us! (ps: follow our writing blog on tumblr @seedofadream!)


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